Look Out, Here Comes The Spider-Man
Frank Rich has a striking column contrasting “Spider-Man 2” with “Fahrenheit 9/11” as a barometer of the nation’s mood.
“It’s hard not to fall in love with “Spider-Man 2.” It’s not only better than any other movie based on a comic book – not the highest bar to reach – but it’s also superior to all the other so-called franchise movies, in which colossal budgets, presold brand-name characters, computer-generated effects and oppressive merchandising conspire to make the product at the center of the marketing blitz often seem as disposable as that new razor concocted to sell you a new line of blades. “Spider-Man 2” is a product of that egregious process and yet it has a delicacy almost never seen any more in the big-ticket juggernauts sent our way by media conglomerates. It thrives on nuance. It’s human even to the extent of replacing the standard-issue camp villain of the first “Spider-Man” movie (Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin) with Alfred Molina’s brooding Doc Ock.”
