As a longtime admirer of the work of director Sam Raimi, nothing is more satisfying than seeing the success of what he does translate to the masses.
The reason is simple: apart from being an incredibly talented filmmaker (you're missing out if you haven't seen such gems as "The Evil Dead" and its two sequels, "Darkman," "A Simple Plan," "For Love of the Game" or "The Gift"), he's a nice guy. In the past five years of doing interviews with Raimi for different film projects, I've always found him to be extremely humble despite his boundless talents and ever-growing success.
And perhaps that sense of humility is why the first "Spider-Man" connected so well with audiences and "Spider-Man 2" is destined to do the same and then some. That's because Raimi doesn't set out to make a film that solely boasts dazzling special effects, but the development of a character in Peter Parker that we -- himself included -- can all relate with.
"When I first tried to figure out what the picture should be about, for me it was a continuation of the theme that has always been in Stan Lee's comic book, which is, 'With great power comes great responsibility,'" Raimi told me in a recent @ The Movies interview. "At the end of the last picture, Peter decided to strike out down the road of responsibility and that's how he was going to live his life. This second part is, really, is the journey towards responsibility."
And what a rough journey it is. Set two years after the first film, "Spider-Man 2" finds Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) in a physical and emotional tailspin. Worn down by the responsibility of being a crime-fighter, Peter struggles to keep his jobs, can't pay his rent and is falling behind in school.
Worse yet, because of his demands, he's alienating the people he loves most in Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) and Harry Osborn (James Franco).
Needless to say, Spidey's second web is much wider and deeper this time around -- and one that we all find ourselves caught up in from time to time.
"I wanted to make a story of his desire of personal fulfillment versus his sense of responsibility towards others," Raimi explained. "It's something we all deal with every day -- not as dramatically as Spider-Man - but in seeing him struggling with these issues and succeeding, I thought the audience would enjoy the experience of identification and be given insight into how we might all succeed in everyday lives being heroes. That's what heroic stories do for us. They show us the way. They remind us of the good we are capable of."
For a villain to block Peter's journey towards being a responsible person and valuing it over self-fulfillment, Raimi thought the best candidate was Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) -- a passionate and caring scientist who is turned into the maniacal, multi-tentacled Doc Ock after a tragic lab accident.
While Raimi had top-notch computer animators and puppeteers to help bring Doc Ock's tentacles to life throughout the film, he also found benefit in Molina's stage experience. The British actor, in fact, was recently honored with a Tony award nomination for his starring role of Tevye in the Broadway revival of "Fiddler on the Roof."
"The puppeteers would puppet these four metallic tentacles that he had as part of his body -- but he had to work with them in such a way that timing was such an essential," Raimi explained. "He is a master of timing. To interact with these tentacles in such a way that he gave them a great deal of life just through his reactions."
Raimi said that skill could only have come through his theatrical training, where "show after show after show he worked with the response of the audience."
"That's something that a lot film actors never get a chance to develop, but I really counted on that to pull off the illusion that he and the tentacles are one being," Raimi said.
With "Spider-Man 2" barely behind him, Raimi has already begun work on "Spider-Man 3," which will once again star Maguire and Dunst. The film is pegged for a May 2007 release.
One guy that couldn't be any happier to see Raimi back in the director's chair for another spin is the father of Spider-Man, Stan Lee, who is also an executive producer on "Spider-Man 2."
"We were so lucky to have Sam as the director of these movies because we couldn't have found anybody better," Lee told me in a separate @ The Movies interview. "So often people will do a movie based on a book and omit the very quality that made the book. Sam knows the character probably as well as I do and he knows what the audience looks for. He knows what it takes to make him believable and empathetic and sympathetic."
Email This Story
Print This Story
Special Section
