Title/Link: A Hulking Presence
Publication: The Daily Texan
Date: June 19, 2003
Quotes:
“‘Batman’ was groundbreaking for comics in the late ’80s and brought back a lot of readers, but ‘Spider-man’ in 2001 was the phenomena,” said Rob Worley, columnists for comicbookresources.com. “It typified everything that was great about Marvel: Heroic fantasy with human drama that people related to.”
“It’s the same thing that makes anything work on the screen, story and characters. That was what Stan Lee was dedicated to in the beginning. He made his characters interesting in and out of costume. He layered fantasy with relatability,” said Worley.
“Marvel got people who were passionate about the material. Sam Raimi was a huge Spider-man fan as a child, and Mark Stephen Johnson was hooked on Frank Miller’s ‘Daredevil’ in his youth,” added Worley. “Also, the state of the art of film making can finally make the characters look as cool on the big screen as they did in the comic book. With special effects now, you can actually believe that Spider-man can crawl on walls.”
Worley, who has seen an advance screening of the film offers much relief to those who would have guarded optimism about the adaptation.
“It’s definitely ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ on steroids, but the human elements are just as interesting as the big effects parts. Eric Bana was great as Bruce Banner. Banner is so repressed, and you can see it on Bana’s face that he is literally uncomfortable in his own skin. Banner’s secret identity is the fear inside of him,” said Worley. “In the story, you have a guy struggling with something, and the key to dealing with it is remembering what happened in his childhood. A lot of people have tragic pasts and things they hide from people. Ang just really focused on that human element in the story.”