REVIEW: The
Spectacular Spiderman is the last animated series based on
Marvel’s Comics most admired Character. After watching some
previews in TV, I was skeptical about the success of this
version, my first thought was that it would not be able to
compete with the 1994-1998 animated series Spiderman, which
I think has been the best adaptation of the comic. In “The
Spectacular” the design of the character were not appealing
enough to suggest that hardcore spidey fans will give this
series a chance, since everything looked too cartoony, if
anything, I thought this was only an attempt to gather new
and much younger fans that did not the true story about the
wall crawler. Boy! I was wrong, the Spectacular Spiderman
has everything that makes this franchise great: amazing
stories, great villains, action, and comedy. I regret not
having follow the series in T.V. from the beginning. Lucky
for me Sony pictures is releasing the first three episodes
of the series as a full length animated movie “The
Spectacular Spiderman: Attack of the Lizard” has all the
characteristics that has made this character a cultural icon
for more than four decades, and the best of all without
commercials.
The movie begins
with a young Peter Parker starting his high school junior
year. having lost his uncle and gotten his new powers Peter
has decided to follow his uncle’s last teaching: “with great
power comes great responsibility.” during his summer
vacation, he has created a reputation against crime,
capturing low class criminals. He can not wait for the new
school year to start, in his mind, everything is going to be
different, unfortunately for him, the change has not gone in
his favor. His friend are mad at him, he still bullied by
the popular kids, Aunt May is having monetary problems, the
girls are not paying him any attention, he can not get a
job, and that is only on the Peter Parker’s side, on the
Spiderman side he is confronted by a new kind of criminals,
like the paid Assassins Enforcers, the vengeful Vulture, the
misfortunate Electro, and eventually, his friend and mentor
Dr. Connor or The Lizard. During this time peter would have
to take decisions that not only affect him as Spiderman or
Peter but also his love ones, and the worst thing about it
is that he would have to handle all this before his curfew
or else he will be in real trouble with Aunt May.
It is impressive how
the writers and animators adapted this character to this
version. As I stated before as cartoonish looking the
characters are, the same quality and emotion from the comic
books and movies are achieve in this series. As Spiderman,
the character looks terrific, his moves and action, and
incomparable humor are masterly illustrated by the animators
and voice actors. The villains, although as not as
impressive managed to get the point across the audience.
Where the movie get his highest rank is in the story, the
writer did an incredible job creating The Lizard story, The
Lizard is one of my favorite characters for his origins and
relationship with Peter. They also did a great job joining
another classical character like Electro the Vulture and the
Enforcers into the plot without altering the main story.
Another great aspect about the movie is how the writers
managed to insert some doubt on Peter’s heart, in parts of
the movie Peter goes into a dark side by thinking only on
himself, but eventually he comes back into his senses,
remembering that with great power comes great
responsibility. The audio and video in the movie is also a
big plus in this series, since it is more kids oriented it
has brighter colors and the dialogues are kept simple. The
only complain about the movie is, like in many superhero
based cartoon, the resolutions are extremely fast, specially
with the secondary villains, a problem that takes almost 20
minutes to develop is easily resolve within 5 minutes, but I
guessed we can not asked much since it is a 30 minute
episode.
I always thought that what has made
Spiderman successful is not his Super hero side but his
human side. The powers, super villains, the dangerous
situations the hero is involve are all good and fun action,
but what make him spectacular is the way the audience can
relate to him, not as Spiderman, but as a human being.
Unlike many other heroes, Spiderman greatest problems are
everyday problems. He is encounter with situations that an
average person could have, like economic problems, the
incapability of helping a love one, or personal issues like
acceptance, school life, and love. This DVD gives us all
that and more, I am hopping for the second DVD release to be
soon, since I Can not wait to see how the characters are
going to develop.
