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DVD: A web of dull extras
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published November 7, 2002
Spider-man (widescreen special edition)
[Photo: Columbia Pictures]
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) dons the Spider-man suit.
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Spider-man is a very good movie, possibly the best live-action adaptation of a comic book ever. On DVD, however, the paper-and-ink origins of the Marvel Comics webslinger overshadow the way Sam Raimi depicted Spidey on screen.
There are no complaints about the film's transfer to disc, making Raimi's primary color scheme leap off the TV screen, more vibrant and fun than I recall during three theater screenings. (Some projectionists need to check their equipment.) Danny Elfman's musical score rumbles and the final shot riding Spider-man's back on a web-swing through the city is a dizzying hint of what the sequels can be.
But DVD is an avenue for extras, informing fans about a favored movie without spoiling the magic. In that regard, the 2-disc Spider-man set is an itsy-bitsy disappointing.
Disc one includes the movie with alternate commentary tracks hosted by Raimi; actor Kirsten Dunst, who played Mary Jane Watson, the object of Spider-man/Peter Parker's affection; and a couple of gloating producers. Only Dunst realizes the fun of what she's doing, with gee-whiz appeal matching the reactions of viewers. Everyone else, especially special effects designer John Dykstra on the second commentary track, are interested in bland nuts-and-bolts information.
The disc also contains a fairly meaningless extra known as Spidey Sense. Just click "enter" when the Spider-man logo appears for a branching featurette. For example, the museum scene in which Peter gets bitten by a mutant spider can detour into a dull interview with a spider wrangler. I breezed through five chapters before encountering another logo, making one wonder why the disc designers even bothered. The music videos are more fun.
Disc two is a bit more enticing thanks to an emphasis on the Marvel years. Check the Spider-man comics archive for reproductions of selected covers over five decades with a synopsis of each adventure. Creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko make a compelling case for the superhero's social significance in a documentary. Other nods to the print version of Spider-man include a Rogues Gallery of supervillains with short biographies and weapons check lists, and a segment dedicated to the women in Peter's perpetually romantic life.
That's the good stuff but there's a lot of fluff to sort through. The costume and makeup test reels are interesting only to viewers wishing to see Dunst and Tobey Maguire standing still and mute to check their look on film. The outtakes reel is uneventful except for some blown lines of dialogue. Profiles of Raimi and Elfman barely skim the surface of their fine careers. Any serious Spidey fan probably has seen the HBO and E! network documentaries reproduced here.
Either disc can be plugged into a computer's DVD-ROM drive for more distractions. The comparison of comic book panels to the movie scenes they inspired is interesting but the option to record your own audio commentary is still too complex to be anything but frustrating. The other DVD-ROM bonuses include three Spider-man online comics, a glorified plug for the Activision computer game and a countdown to the sequel slated for release in 2004. By then, the filmmakers should have to try a bit harder to convince us to buy the DVD.
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