"HEY, WEB HEAD!"

 "Commencement: the end of one thing, the start of something new." 

Green Goblin. Spiderman (2002).

OK, so anyone I've spoken to before now knows I wasn't exactly over enthusiastic at the talk of a re-boot. I mean, come on, it hardly seems that far back that we got the Raimi films, does it? And in the early release pictures the new suit looked, well, a bit camp (the red looked pink for a start), and why hire an English actor in his mid-twenties to play an American teenager?...

I don't often change my stance on things like this, but I'm actually looking forward to this now.

1/ First off, the suit no longer looks pink, thanks to the on-set tendency for dark lighting. And anyway, end of the day, it's a body tight red and blue gimp suit- it's always going to look a little camp. I'm glad to see a leaner body shape too, and I was never all that impressed with the outfit in Raimi's films anyway- what was with all the silver?

2/ As much as I think Defoe nailed the Green Goblin (the ultimate Spidey villain- bonkers suit or not), my personal favorite has always been The Lizard. While I'm not really an Ifans fan, I have nothing against him and look forward to seeing the final reveal of the creature... I'm hoping to see the more feral McFarlane style monster, so long as they don't drop the ball with the CGI.




3/ Let's face it. On re-watching them the Raimi film's weren't actually all that good were they? Sure, it was nice to see Spiderman on screen, and compared to the benchmark it really didn't have much superhero competition. Times are different now, so maybe it's not such a bad time for a serious re-boot after all?

4/ The parent mystery. Seems a strange place to take the Spiderman origin story, but I'm game. I don't want a remake, I want something different.

I realise I'm probably just writing this for myself. That's OK.



Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty of opportunity for disaster.

I dislike the guy in the lead, Garfield, I don't think he's up to much and I thought his breakout role in Never Let Me Go (or whatever it was) was amateur level. And casting agents- for God's sake, hire an American for an American role! While you're at it, stop paying people in their late teens to play high school kids! If you want to tell the high school years, cast younger, or alternatively (originality, shock horror) Just tell the story of him as an adult, everyone already knows the origin! For me, I quite liked the kid in Kickass, he'd have made a fairly decent Parker- and let's face it, he basically was.



The Lizard (as yet still under wraps despite some grainy leaked test footage) could look awful, and that would sink it. Harsh but true. The CGI for Spiderman leaping around could also prove to be shockingly bad...

Is the girl playing Gwen Stacey (the love interest) going to be irritating? Are they going to stay true to the comic and kill her off, or will she perhaps live to the inevitable sequel?



Why complicate things with the Web-shooters? Yeah, they're in the comic, so what? They were a stupid thing, (controversially) well side-stepped in the Raimi films. In a realistic world, how does that work? And how will they explain Parker's funky new costume this time round? That rarely holds up to scrutiny.

On a final point, thanks largely to Nolan's Batman re-boot, the mood for superheros seems to be dark & edgy, I just hope this dosn't follow suite, but unfortunately that seems to be a very likely possibility, judging by the trailer. While realism and grit is all fine and good, let's not forget that this is Spiderman, not The Crow. Dark worked for Batman because Batman is dark, not all characters need that treatment- just look at the balance struck in the first Ironman film, that worked a treat.

Anyhow, them be my thoughts on the subject, feel free to express yourselves. I'm now down on record as officially excited and you can all tell me how wrong I was if this thing falls flat.

So long, web-heads!