Spidey comes of media age

IT’S lonely at the top of a skyscraper, as any contemporary incarnation of a superhero knows. In “Spider-Man 3,” Peter Parker adds the burdens of celebrity to his already heavy psychic load and overextended schedule and, bless him, it goes right to his head. For some time now, the tent-poles of today have focused on expressing the anxieties of yesterday -- i.e. the Kennedy era, or thereabouts -- manifesting Atomic Age angst and the worrisome unintended effects of science on humanity in the form of evil mutants divested of their moral compass. What does it say about the ultimate everyman superhero that his problems now stem from overexposure?

It may be no “Spider-Man 2,” which surpassed the original, but “Spider-Man 3” does a good job of poking fun at the effects of celebrity at a time when appearance and performance trump everything else. Of all the evils Spidey battles in his latest incarnation, it’s the ego excesses of his inner jerk that are the most wickedly fun to watch. The scene in which he rolls his eyes during a call from his professor, Dr. Connors, while casually ordering his fawning neighbor Ursula to go make him some cookies with nuts is among the funniest in the movie. The same goes for the scenes in which he struts down the street like a latter-day early Travolta, drawing appreciative and disgusted glances from girls in equal measure.

With their ailing children, dead fathers and professional reputations to rescue or avenge, Sandman, Venom and the New Goblin are saps by comparison. Dark Spidey, on the other hand, is a monster of the media age: a blinkered narcissist who buys into his own press. It’s no wonder Mary Jane feels bad. Her stage career is tanking, killed by bad reviews, just as her boyfriend’s takes off -- a cruel trick of fate that has felled more than one celebrity relationship. That her rival is a model is the last, humiliating straw.

It’s ironic, in a way, that the utterly transformative technological advances that have made the superhero genre viable again figure minimally if at all in the contemporary story lines. Ditto for the forces of destruction that worry us now. The most dispiriting moment in the film comes when a couple of boys, inured to heroic wizardry and death-defying action, bestow their highest praise at the sight of the Sandman getting his head blown off by one of the Goblin’s flying pumpkin bombs. Not that this doesn’t ring familiar: With New York once again under siege as the Sandman wreaks havoc, the fickle and gossip-obsessed man on the street pores over tabloids offering takedowns of his larger-than-life hero. But then, there is something indescribably satisfying about watching young Spidey, that model student and surrogate son, give in to arrogance and hubris. What could be more of the moment?

carina.chocano@latimes.com