(with word of the return of Bono, and this being Throwback Thursday, here is my take on the Julie Taymor before she was fired now closed U2 Spiderman epic. Call it Throw Up Thursday. From 2010 no less… IL)
No messing: the end of the first act, when Spiderman battles Green Lantern, every promise Julie Taymor has made as a savant of the theatre is potentially answered. To say it is eye popping is to understate: Lantern and Spidey literally swing from the rafters and while the wire are visible, it is beautiful in ways Cirque De Soleil never ever is.
Through air propulsion and thru hydraulics and thru trapeze artistry suddenly the Foxwood becomes a thing of intense beauty and sustained disbelief. And even when the fail safe kicks in and Spiderman and Green Lantern are stranded mid-air for five minutes, the joy in theatre, the joy so overwhelming in “The Lion King” suspends the audience as well. We don’t care.
Unfortunately, the rest of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is a disastrous mess.
The story you know. The first 45 minutes is a dreary drudge through Spiderman One the Movie. Lessee if I can dumb it down (it is pretty dumb anyway)
1. Mary Jane hanging from the Empire State Building and Spidey trying to save her. A Flashforward .
2. Peter Parker being bullied.
3. Debatable the worst song Bono and the Edge have ever written “No More”
4. A really, really gorgeous scene with Parker getting his Spidey skills “Bouncing Off The Wall”.
5. Did I mention the “Geek Chorus” -not the single worse idea of the night, that would be getting Bono and the Edge to compose the music.
6. or maybe a female and enfeebled female Spidey Arachne who will singlehandedly destroy Act Two
7. And doctor something or other becomes Green Goblin
8.The best song so far, and it isn’t very good “Picture This” (Blondie? We should be so lucky)
9. The before mentioned big battle.
10. Here is a pix and sure it sucks but I was sneaking em.
12. Now things head South for the summer.
13. Arcachne -er, this is pure goodbledygook, but, anyway she wants to mate with Spidey and bite off his head or something.
14. And brings back all the villains Spidey vanquished (I know, I missed it myself)
15. and nothing much happens because for some relentlessly stupid reason they use cardboard cut outs. I know, I am pretty shocked myself. I’m guessing there are security reasons for this simply baffling decision to throw away your calling card.
16. Blah, blah blah, Spidey gives up being Spidey and changes his mind.
17. Another not terrible so… no I can’t say it. I am curve grading the songs. They are all terrible.
18. Lots and lots of dancing Spideys.
Yes, folks, a disaster, but a Titanic disaster. And like the Titanic you watch in awe as it sinks and a must see for any pop culture fiend and absolutely. But the give away is the Geek Chorus, there to explain what the book isn’t good enough to do for itself. The book is just awful. The first 45 minutes are terrible exposition, the second half a disastrous mistake and a third of the first act as exhilarating as the theatre can get: better than Mary Poppins combined. An ambitious, high wire act.
But we came to bury, right.
Back to the book. The entire Arachne legend is a mistake and should’ve been physically ejected by the producers. That is where somebody should’ve said “no”, Let’s say they had simplified and kept the focus on Spiderman/Green Goblin/ Love Interest. THEN they could have had a pow of an ending and everybody woulda come out singing that tune.
Because they won’t be singing the score. It takes more than one thing to make a disaster this huge. It tales Bono and the Edge complete inability to write one NOT ONE memorable song. I mentioned “Mary Poppins” a moment. The smallest piffle of a song in “Mary Poppins” -literally across the street, is worth every word and sound Bono and the Edge have written. I don’t know what they don’t get but if they think we are impressed with transitional music, we are not in the slightest and if they have no melody left in them they should regurgitate their own hits because this is a gargantuan $68M production and the score is an embarrassment.
Honestly, I know I rag on U2 a lot, but I would commend them if the music was good. I promise I would. It all emotes without song or structure. from “Bullying By Numbers” (aka plot movement) to “Love Me Or Kill Me” their song for Batman was better than this entire disaster.
The mind boggles.
$68M and this is it? if you had given it to McCartney, he woulda sucked but he would have nailed at least two songs to leave you humming. There is not one. It sounds like mid-00s U2 and current U2, on the big ballads there is heavy U2 ballad without a basis in the song. No memorable lyric at all. It is too busy moving furniture.The rock band plus orchestra overwhelm everything and despite the attempts at intimacy, pas de deux with Mary Jane and Peter Parker, it fails.
The acting is OK, except for the Geek chorus (but that isn’t their fault, it’s Julies). MJ by Jennifer Damiano channels Kristen Dunst and not a bad choice. Reeve Carney as Spiderman just about carries it on his back as the only character we notice and bless him because it’s yeoman work.
So will it survive? Maybe. The book needs rewriting, nothing to be done with the score but if somebody can make Bono and the Edge understand how important it is, maybe they can write one great song. And it looks… just unbelievable.
But what I saw yesterday? That won’t make it.
