Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark

So I saw Spiderman last night. It had been something I wanted to see before the 20 different accidents and the million terrible reviews. The little kid in me (plus the U2 fan) thought that this would at least be a great experience.

I'm not a critic, so I can't tell you if it sucked or not. They way I described it as soon a I left was this: It's like watching a live Power Rangers episode with Team America puppet-pulling (read: stupid) action sequences. The "flying" was cool, but I was crapping myself thinking that somebody might fall.

The whole concept of the play its hard to pull off. Nobody will be happy because Spiderman is one of those iconic heroes in America - everyone has their own image of him. I'm not going to say I wasn't happy, but I wasn't thrilled. They killed some of the key original story lines.

I'm not sure it was ever meant to be a musical. That's part of the problem. There were points where I couldn't really understand what was being sung, it felt like the guitars overpowered the voices. Some of the songs were really good (I've been trying to download them all day today), but some were terrible. I kept trying to picture Bono singing them, and it didn't really work for me. But the "main" song was right up Edge's alley. It felt like all the songs were adaptations of other U2 songs, which is kind of weak, but U2 is amazing, so it balances fairly.

I'm not a huge Spiderman nerd. I couldn't tell you everything about the villains and the differences between Amazing Spiderman and Ultimate Spiderman and SuperDuper Spiderman. I watched whatever version that was on Fox on Saturday Mornings. I vaguely remember something about the spider goddess, but I really didn't like that whole theme. It really bothered me that the "with great power comes great responsibility" line from Uncle Ben that was like the focal point of the entire cartoon/movie/comic was barely mentioned. They could of made a song out of that.

Staging wise (is that the right term? I've become such a loser.) was probably the best thing about the show. They were able to mix in a healthy combination of comic book into the "real" world. You can see why the show is the most expensive in Broadway's history - the set was moving more than Kanye West's during his Glow in the Dark Tour.

One funny thing from last night - at the end it was pretty clear that Peter Parker was supposed to fly one last time, but he didn't get his "flying tools" strapped on in time/correctly, so he just walked off the stage and sort of threw the cords at the stage hands. Glad to see he didn't risk his life, but it's a shame the ending wasn't what it could of been.

The show is still in "previews" or whatever the correct terminology is for it. I don't think it's a total disaster. I just think they need to change things around. The whole Spider Goddess thing was brutal. Scratch her, make one of those "Sinister Six" the core villain for part two. They're strong enough characters there. There's a lot they could do - the Spiderman Universe is so expansive, it makes no sense to keep it to just the Green Goblin.

I just pray this isn't the beginning of a trend, as in a few years we see a X-Men on Broadway. And then the Hulk. Then Iron Man. Etc. Keep them on the silver screen.