Been There...

Rating: 4/10 (8 November 2002)

Though he's probably the best choice around, there's an air of desperation in Sam Raimi's direction, as if he needed a hit to reestablish himself on the A-list after duds like `A Simple Plan' and `The Gift', and he reaches into his old bag of tricks, trying to invoke the spirit of his sublime `Darkman'. He fails: the film has a lot of the `Darkman' look--especially the climax, which primarily takes place at night on top of a New York borough bridge--but little of the passion because, unlike the reverence with which Raimi regards the Universal horror films of the thirties and infused into `Darkman', he treats the Marvel Comic source material with an air of condescension, as if it were mere kitsch. And he doesn't stop there, borrowing indiscriminately from the obvious pop icons, the DC Comic-inspired `Superman' and `Batman' films--he doesn't seem to have the slightest desire to bring anything original to the project. The film is awash in computer effects and perhaps it's Raimi's intention to stylize the movement of the action but it seems a bit of a cover-up; there are so many unconvincing moments that you have to spend too much time telling yourself it's done that way on purpose. The script is another lazy hack job by David Koepp (`Panic Room', `Mission: Impossible') who not only hews it close to the Hollywood-101 bone by bringing in all the bullied teenager and father/son pathos he can, but also by stroking the citizenry of New York, elevating them, in the film's most shameless twist, to hero status. Perhaps the real culprit is Sony Pictures: the whole thing reeks of trying to keep the dying comic book film genre alive by aligning it with post-9/11 bloodlust. With Tobey Maguire, competent in the title role, Kirsten Dunst (so-so) as his would-be love interest and Willem Dafoe, pretty good as The Green Goblin.