SPIDER-MAN flies both high and low on Broadway
Foxwoods Theatre
213 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 4, $77.50 – $157.50
spidermanonbroadway.marvel.com
Forget about all the controversy, the delayed official openings, the injuries to performers from equipment problems, the departure of original director Julie Taymor, and all of the other bizarre elements that made Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark the talk of Broadway for months and months on end. What it all really comes down to is this: Is it any good? And the answer is a resounding: No, it’s not really very good at all. The big-budget musical about a teenage science geek who suddenly becomes a superhero is an overblown spectacle with forgettable music and lyrics by Bono and the Edge, a meandering book by Taymor, Glen Berger, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, and an uncomfortable mix of low-budget DIY staging and high-tech gadgetry. Reeve Carney stars as Peter Parker, a nerdy kid who is bitten by a spider while on a school trip to the lab of cutting-edge scientist Norman Osborn (Drama Desk-nominated Patrick Page). Peter quickly develops special powers that soon find him soaring over the Big Apple, protecting New York City from evil. Like every superhero, he needs an arch villain, who arrives in the form of the Green Goblin (Page), the result of one of Osborn’s experiments gone terribly wrong. As the Green Goblin and his Sinister Six ― Swarm (Drew Heflin), the Lizard (Julius C. Carter), Electro (Maxx Reed), Kraven the Hunter (Emmanuel Brown), Carnage (Adam Roberts), and Swiss Miss (Reed Kelly) ― terrorize the city, Spider-Man must choose between fighting crime or settling down with the love of his life, Mary Jane Watson (Rebecca Faulkenberry).
There are some dazzling moments ― director Philip Wm. McKinley and choreographers Daniel Ezralow and Chase Brock do a wonderful job introducing Arachne (Christina Sajous) and her small contingent, who magically descend from above on fabulously flapping fabric inspired by weaving techniques, and an unfolding Chrysler Building is breathtaking ― but most of the scenes are flat and uninspired. Even the justly celebrated flying gets played out and repetitive, and the supposed showstopping act two opener, “A Freak Like Me Needs Company,” in which the Green Goblin introduces his crew of baddies, insultingly breaks down the barrier between performer and audience, a mistake from which it never recovers. Nominated for two Tonys (for Best Scenic Design and Best Costume Design of a Musical), Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which recently welcomed its one millionth visitor, is unable to break free from a tangled web of its own making. (In honor of the show’s two Tony nominations, the first one hundred people with the name Anthony, Tony, Antoinette, Toni, Antonia, or Antonio who come to the Foxwoods Theatre box office on June 4 at 10:00 am will receive a coupon for a pair of free tickets to the Sunday matinee on June 10.)
Stanley Kubrick’s lush, romantic epic, Barry Lyndon, is one of the most elegantly visual pictures ever made. Based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1844 serialized picaresque novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, Kubrick’s extravagant three-hour tale follows the shenanigans of one Redmond Barry, played with endless charm by Ryan O’Neal. The man soon to be known as Barry Lyndon has a remarkable knack for survival — or maybe it’s just plain old Irish luck — as he rises in English society via a series of duels (with epees, guns, and bare knuckles), military battles (the Seven Years’ War), and, most prominently, sexual conquests. Consisting of two sections, “By What Means Redmond Barry Acquired the Style and Title of Barry Lyndon” and “Containing an Account of the Misfortunes and Disasters Which Befell Barry Lyndon,” the film features glorious music by Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Schubert, and the Chieftains in addition to absolutely divine locations that lay the groundwork for the sumptuous Oscar-winning art direction by Ken Adam, Vernon Dixon, and Roy Walker and cinematography by John Alcott; virtually every scene contains beautiful shots based on famous paintings, a treat for the eyes and the ears. (Leonard Rosenman took home an Academy Award as well for his adapted score.) The overly long story does drag at times, but it flows better once you get used to O’Neal in the title role. The underappreciated film also has a great supporting cast, with Marisa Berenson as Lady Lyndon, Patrick Magee as the Chevalier de Balibari, Hardy Krüger as Captain Potzdorf, Steven Berkoff as Lord Ludd, Leonard Rossiter as Captain John Quin, and Gay Hamilton as Nora Brady. Barry Lyndon will be screening May 21 at the Lighthouse as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ ongoing Monday Nights with Oscar series and will be introduced by director Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball).
Writer-director Panos Cosmatos’s debut feature is a creepy homage to those rainy Saturday afternoon low-budget horror movies of the 1970s. Paying tribute to such films as John Carpenter’s Dark Star, Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm, Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, and even Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cosmatos has created a mysterious psychological thriller set in a futuristic past, going from 1983 to 1966, with cinematographer Norm Li alternating between black-and-white scenes to a world bathed in a lurid red, ruled by a cosmic white pyramid. Michael Rogers, sporting the best hairstyle this side of Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, stars as Barry Nyle, a psychiatrist whose only patient, kept trapped in a padded cell, is Elena (Eva Allan), a frightened young woman trying to regain control of her life — something that Nyle is not about to allow. Beyond the Black Rainbow is a head trip of a flick, a midnight movie with a thumping electronic score by Sinoia Caves, wonderfully cheesy production design by Bob Bottieri, and some classically inexplicable moments filled with strange close-ups, blurry visions, and appropriately substandard acting. Just listening to Nyle breathe deep and heavy is a hoot. We have no idea what the movie is about, but that didn’t detract from our enjoyment of it; in fact, it might have helped.
Whoever first said that you can’t put a square peg in a round hole was clearly not a Hollywood producer. In the big-budget Battleship, writers Jon and Erich Hoeber (Red) and director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom) transform the old-fashioned, ultra-low-tech board game Battleship into a massive sci-fi action thriller that is pretty much as dumb as you would expect but not quite as stupid as you would hope. Which is not saying that it is not both dumb and stupid, but it will also unexpectedly grab you upon occasion. Taylor Kitsch stars as Alex Hopper, a young ne’er-do-well who is forced to join the Navy by his older brother, Commander Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård), after everything else in Alex’s life has gone wrong. Just as he’s about to be tossed out of the Navy as well, Alex — who has fallen in love with blonde physical therapist Samantha Shane (Brooklyn Decker), the stunningly beautiful daughter of the tough-as-nails Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson) — must suddenly turn into a leader as the Pacific Fleet comes under attack from what appears to be alien invaders. Taking multiple pages out of such disaster flicks as Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Day After Tomorrow, and the 1998 Godzilla, Berg has made an utterly predictable movie with inane dialogue, absurd subplots, cool explosions, and a booty-shaking soundtrack (by composer Steve Jablonsky, with guitar by Tom Morello along with an overdose of classic rock). The casting is often more interesting than the film itself, with Rihanna as Petty Officer Cora Raikes, Army veteran and double amputee Gregory D. Gadson as Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales, and Japanese star Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer) as Captain Nagata. As far as the film’s relationship to the board game goes, the alien bombs are shaped like Battleship pegs, and there is one scene in which a computerized numbered and lettered grid is used to try to track down the enemy. What’s next? Pong: The Movie? Actually, it looks like there are plans to turn Asteroids and Space Invaders into films. We kid you not. And as far as Battleship is concerned, we can’t even consider it sunk, as it has already grossed more than $200 million overseas. And if you sit through all of the credits, you’ll be rewarded by a bonus scene that just might make you think that a sequel is possible.