Spider-Man and Hollywood Ending

They're both franchises. Spider-Man, in his various incarnations, and Woody Allen, in his, have been around seemingly forever; both, too, are identified with New York City. Both released films on May 3, and both films are pretty much as you would expect them to be: the former a big-budget action spectacular, the latter a low-budget comedy.

I was more disappointed in Spider-Man, if only because it's been so successful that I thought that maybe there might be something to it beyond the standard action-hero caper.

Why, then, the success? Well, Spider-Man is a much-loved cartoon character, both in comic-book and cartoon form. A lot has been made of the way in which he's one of us: an adolescent boy, rather than a reclusive multi-millionaire (Batman) or an extraterrestrial refugee (Superman). I think the reason is more basic still: the idea of swinging on spider-ropes from building to building, once implanted in the brain, is impossible to remove. I should imagine that pretty much every kid who's ever been exposed to the Spider-Man concept has looked up at his or her city at many points in his or her childhood and fantasised about what it would be like to be up there, among the skyscrapers, freed from terrestrial limitations.

Both theories of Spider-Man's success correspond to weaknesses in Sam Raimi's movie.There's a cute bit where Spidey is learning the ropes, as it were, and crashes into a wall, and there's even a great half-second or so when we realise along with him that the way to do it is to fire off a second rope in the opposite direction and let go of the first. But after that, it's all jumps and blurs: no Spider-cams, or feelings of what it's like to swing around the rooftops.

More problematic for the movie is the very fact that it's grounded in some kind of recognisable reality, where Peter Parker is bullied at a New York City school, lives in a loft on Broadway and Bond, and bumps into his love interest at the corner of Houston and Sixth Avenue. That's all well and good, but it makes our suspension of disbelief a lot more difficult: it serves to make the slavishly-followed comic-book conventions look as ridiculous as they are when you stop to think about them. The cigar-chomping newspaper editor; the girl who somehow never cottons on to Spider-Man's identity; the villain who, even after he's decided to kill his nemesis, decides to construct a dastardly plan involving torn loyalties despite the fact that it serves no purpose whatsoever: switching back and forth between reality and ultrafantasy can be a bit tiring after a while.

The biggest switch of all happens halfway through the film. It's fun to watch Peter Parker coming to grips with his spider-powers; it's boring to see him use them. The minute he appears in his full-blown spider costume, ready to save the world from evildoers, is the minute that you can safely walk out of the cinema. After all, you know the ending already: Spider-Man vanquishes the Green Goblin, while leaving lots of room for a sequel.

Also confusing is the fact that the movie doesn't seem entirely sure where it's set: it's New York, to be sure, but when? The street criminals are straight out of Taxi Driver, but the Macy Gray appearance in Times Square is post-Disneyfication. I last got this feeling in Eyes Wide Shut, weirdly enough, in the scene where Tom Cruise is jeered at by Greenwich Village hoodlums accusing him of being gay. But if Eyes Wide Shut is hurt by the disconnect between the real and the portrayed New York, Spider-Man suffers more, because the portrayed New York is so central to the film. Maybe this is a criticism only a New Yorker could make, but what's the point of setting your movie here, of having Spider-Man introspect from the vantage point of a Chrysler Building gargoyle, if you're just going to turn NYC into Batman's Gotham? In Batman, Tim Burton got to spend a fortune on a slick dystopian production design which looked gorgeous; in Spider-Man, Sam Raimi's constrained by the fact that New York City is a real place, and then denies himself any of the upside.

Woody Allen, of course, is virtually New York incarnate, and any time he makes a film without some kind of heartfelt expression of love to our city we feel that something's missing. His latest effort, Hollywood Ending, comes sans any kind of New York flavour, and one gets the impression that Woody didn't really invest any emotional equity in it. It's a throwaway Allen film: very funny, yet even more lightweight than Small Time Crooks. Good comedy is hard work, and although there are some great lines and fabulously inventive writing in this film, most of it seems rushed, as though Allen couldn't be bothered to put in the extra effort.

Take just about any scene between two characters: you'll see one of them say a line, then there'll be a slightly-too-long pause, and then you'll cut to a shot of the second responding, back and forth any number of times. No fluid cameras, no flavour; it's as though he's decided that the writing is funny enough that he doesn't need to bother directing or editing.

There's also really only one joke in the film: the film director who can't see. Woody Allen makes sure it's a funny one, but I'm not sure it's really capable of sustaining a full-length feature. Bring back the inventiveness of Deconstructing Harry, please!

Posted by Felix at 20:08 EST