Blu-rays We Love: Spider-Man (2002)

Last time we took a look at the excellent DVD for Rush Hour 2. Now we move on to the Blu-ray re-release of Spider-Man, a film we reviewed in the formative years of Code Redd Net, which at the time I boldly described as" the greatest super-hero movie I have ever had the privilege of seeing." Chicken Man said the film was "a totally rad experience if your sitting in the front row." Perhaps the movie doesn't hold up as well as  you might hope, but it's still fun to watch 11 years later, and there's plenty of bonus features on the disc to make it a worthwhile addition to your Blu-library.

The most obviously dated element in Spider-Man is CGI Spider-Man. It's not totally embarrassing or campy, at least not yet, but technological advancements in the technique have clearly come a long way since then. The blend of live-action and CGI is not terribly smooth when it comes to human imaging. For instance, the early scenes of Peter Parker's transformation into Spider-Man are particularly jarring in their transition from actor to computer avatar. Nevertheless, it's not too distracting. What I enjoyed about most about Spider-Man on this most recent viewing was its tone: a fine blend of humor and seriousness, in about equal measure. Unlike the recent Amazing Spider-Man, which unwisely hit fast-forward on the origin story, Spider-Man prolongs the first appearance of its properly-costumed crime fighter until just prior to the start of its second hour. When Amazing Spider-Man went straight to the crib sheet, it lost the emotional backbone of the story, what makes Peter Parker's personal tragedy so significant. Spider-Man does a fantastic job of  inviting sympathy for the awkward teenager, played with appropriate dorkiness by the inherently dorky Tobey Maguire. While Maguire does an admirable job in his dual role, it's the rest of the cast that really stands out. Particularly noteworthy is Willem Dafoe's turn as Norman Osbourne/Green Goblin, a role which gives the actor ample opportunity to pull faces. Even James Franco is pretty good as his spoiled son, Harry. Spider-Man may not have aged gracefully, but it's still a completely solid film that remains enjoyable on a second or third or even fourth viewing, which is why you buy something like this on Blu-ray, right?

Tobey Maguire as Spider-Lee

In terms of the Blu-ray disc, you get all of the bonus features from the initial DVD version, and there were plenty of those, plus some new things to go along with it: namely, a "Spider Sense Trivia Challenge" and the "Spider-Man Cutting Room Floor" feature, both of which add tremendous value to the disc. Most significantly, the Trivia Challenge is a game played over the film in which you must answer a series of multiple-choice questions. These questions range from plot details ("How much was the reward for lasting three minutes in the ring with Bonesaw McGraw?"), to production history, to questions regarding Spider-Man's comic book history. It's hit or miss with most of these questions, as they appear in a seemingly random order not at all tied to the plot of the film. Because the questions appear to be in a random sequence each time the trivia game is activated, I was often asked questions about plot details that had yet to be revealed (fortunately, they are not significant enough plot points to be considered spoilers). Also, since the questions are timed to appear every minute or so, they often appear over very exciting visual sequences. While this is not too much of a problem if you've seen the film before, it would've been nice if the questions were more plentiful during the film's more expository, and less spectacular, scenes and didn't distract me from a fight scene. Still, though, there's enough questions about the tensile strength of spider webs, for instance, to keep your interest while watching the film. The game keeps track of your score based on the number of correct answers and the amount of time elapsed in answering them, and rewards you with a ranking at the end of the film. I was given the rank of "Superhero-in-Training" and treated to a 15-second montage from the film of Spider-Man swinging around the city in his hokey wrestling outfit. Not much of a reward, but it's nice to be ranked based on your performance. Even though the questions do get repetitious at times, I think this is a decent first effort at integrating elements of Scene-It into a single film, something that I believe could immensely enjoyable when fully implemented.

There's also a "Cutting Room Floor" feature which allows you to clip segments of the film and re-edit them into a short sequence with new music and sound effects. I was able to splice together Spider-Man's cage match with Macho Man Randy Savage with scenes of Peter Parker crying in his room, punctuated by comical sound effects and a somber musical score. It's a lot of fun, even though the interface for cutting the scenes can be cumbersome, and making changes later in the process can be quite difficult. This is definitely a feature I would love to see on future releases of Jackie Chan or Jet Li films, for instance, so that I could cut together all the fight scenes into one montage, but it works well for Spider-Man.

Finally, as indicated above, the Blu-ray includes all the bonus features from the original Special Edition DVD release in 2002. Of the three commentary tracks, only the one featuring the VFX crew is of any interest: director Sam Raimi does too much narrating and too much talking about himself on his track, while Tobey Maguire and J.K. Simmons' track gets awfully quiet for long stretches of the film. HBO's making-of featurette and E! Entertainment's "Spider-Mania" are typical Hollywood puffery, though the "Spider-Man: Mythology of the 21st Century" piece is a nice and thorough historical look at the character's cinematic development. Besides these longer extras, there's also an archival selection of theatrical trailers, TV spots, webisodes, screen tests, cast and crew profiles, and an outtake reel. All in all, it's a swell package that's worth picking up if you, like me, somehow lost your old DVD copy of the movie.

DVDs We Love: Rush Hour 2 (2001)

This should be an easy transition: as you know, we've spent the last few weeks on Code Redd Net revisiting some Classic Chan films. Now we return with a new recurring feature, one that aims to spotlight some of the best, most valuable and most interesting DVDs/Blu-rays on the market. Too often films released for home viewing provide little incentive for purchase beyond the quality of the film it contains. Our purpose here is to draw your attention to those discs laden with special features, special features that make repeated viewings worthwhile, that keep the DVD/Blu-ray in question spinning in your player for years. To that end, we can find no better way to kick things off than by returning to Rush Hour 2. In addition to being a beloved CRN Awards winner and longtime site/blog staple, it's also one of our favorite DVDs ever released. Find out why below.

Ricky, you sly son of a gun, just look at you.

Rush Hour 2 is not the best Jackie Chan film. In fact, looking over the items chronicled in our recent Classic Chan series, arguably eight of those ten films feature better fights, better stunts, and overall a more competent use of Chan's physical abilities. What those films lack, though, is the sheen of Rush Hour 2, its efficiency of storytelling and style. Undeniably, Rush Hour 2 is lean Hollywood filmmaking, all its excesses contained in 90 minutes and rounded off by the credits. Hollywood is at its best when taking something mediocre and inflating it to the absolute limit, usually via astronomical production values. So while Chan's choreography is below average in this film, so much else around him is of a higher quality (everything from the lighting, the sets, the cameras, to the film stock itself) that we can temporarily forget the handcuffs put on our favorite action star. It's a decent enough compromise for the Chan enthusiast and the casual viewer, I suppose.

Besides the quality of the film, the DVD for Rush Hour 2 really delivers the goods. As part of the abandoned Infinifilm brand of New Line, the Rush Hour 2 disc is loaded with stuff:

• Commentary with director Brett Ratner and writer Jeff Nathanson
• Featurettes: "Making Magic Out of Mire", "Fashion of Rush Hour 2", "Jackie Chan's Hong Kong Introduction", "Culture Clash: West Meets East", "Language Barrier", "Attaining International Stardom", "Kung Fu Choreography".
• Evolution of a Scene
• Visual Effects Deconstruction
• Deleted Scenes/Outtakes (with optional director/writer commentary)
• Theatrical Trailers
• Cast and Crew bios
• Fact Track
• DVD-rom with a script you can read alongside film
• as well as the usual plethora of language/subtitle options and chapter selection

This may not sound that impressive at first, but the DVD's Infinifilm option integrates almost every one of these elements into the film's presentation. Menus pop up onscreen, inviting you to watch short clips, snipped from the full featurettes listed above that deal directly with the scene.

In this example, the massage parlor fight is supplemented with material describing its construction. Play the clip and the disc returns you to the film at exactly the same point you were at before. Though the disc obviously needs a few seconds to gather up the selected data after you click an option, and a few more to get you back, it's nothing too jarring; and it helps that the clips are usually interesting and engage you more thoroughly with the film. Certainly the Infinifilm feature could become annoying for those watching the film for the first time, but it's not the default option on the disc. For those looking for a reason to watch it again, though, it's a perfect means to do so.

Outside of the Infinifilm, you can access all the supplemental material individually and in full. Though there's plenty of flatulent industry fluff, like "Fashion of Rush Hour 2" and "Making Magic Out of Mire", many of the other features are worth watching. Evolution of a Scene, essentially rehearsal footage of some of the more expensive/explosive scenes, is an interesting opportunity to see Jackie's method of choreography at work. I always appreciate the inclusion of deleted scenes, though in this case they were clearly deleted for a reason; same goes for the outtakes, really.

Brett Ratner and his screenwriter writer provide feature-length commentary and it's mostly banal stuff that gets regurgitated elsewhere on the disc. There's a bit too much gossip, and way too much Hollywood name-dropping, but on occasion they provide an insight or tow. One of the more intriguing special features is the Fact Track (above), an option that places a running stream of incidental notes on the lower part of the screen. These include useful biographical bits on Chan, Tucker, and the minor or incidental characters that surround them, as well as trivia regarding the scenery, shooting locations, and Snoopy's height relative to Tucker's racially-charged estimation of Chan's height. Like the Infinifilm option, though perhaps less exciting visually, Fact Track is yet another way to make a repeated viewing of the film seem novel. Strangely enough, it's possible to watch the film with the Fact Track, commentary, and Infinifilm features all running at the same time! It's a bit too much for the senses, I think, but it nonetheless proves that the disc is loaded not only with special features, but with a highly customizable engagement with them.

All things considered, the Rush Hour 2 Infinifilm DVD is one loaded with replay value. By my count, there's at least four-five different ways to watch the film: by itself, with Infinifilm, with commentary, with the fact track, and with some combination of the above options. This is in addition to the standalone full features accessible via the menu. It's too bad New Line gave up on the Infinifilm brand, because I wish all my DVDs/Blu-rays had this kind of depth.

Get the DVD on Amazon for $.01 right here (and make sure you follow the link to the Infinifilm product specifically, as there's another, stripped-down and feature-less version of the disc in circulation).