| There is an inherent logistical flaw in the creation of a super-villain. Maybe it’s thanks to the climate of the world we live in today that makes me think this way, but if a high-tech company with government backing turned my entire head into a pile of lightening, I would seriously take a lawsuit into consideration. I wouldn’t have to take to a life of crime, looting bake shops and robbing banks – no – with just one medical experiment gone awry wherein I crash into a tank full of electric eels, I could be making mad fuck money and have a head made of electricity to boot. It’s a win/win!
Of course, such life-changing events tends to make their victims go insane which conveniently eliminates the thought of legal dollar signs (and think of the paperwork anyway, it’s hard to sign documents when you’re for all intents and purposes a celestial being), but why is falling into a tank full of electric eels any different than getting bitten by a radioactive spider? Did Peter Parker just have a better upbringing?
These questions aren’t answered in The Spectacular Spider-Man: Attack of the Lizard, which strings three Villain origin stories into one episodic (obviously) full-length feature that I will now damn with faint praise: it’s not horrible. If children were allowed within 100 feet of me, I’d let them watch Attack of the Lizard for a few reasons:
 01. It’s fairly innocuous
While newer children’s programming might be more concerned with creating a hip edge, The Spectacular Spider-Man allows the material to veer into cornball territory – and that’s who Peter Parker is: a total goddamn cornball. I would like to point out that I do differentiate between cornball and cheeseball – and The Spectacular Spider-Man does not veer into cheese.
02. It doesn’t offend my personal biases
Brian Michael Bendis didn’t write the teleplay, and it has no connection to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 debacle, which makes me a very happy person. In fact, Attack of the Lizard might pander to my demographic considering it features the voice-over talents of both Keith David and Robert Englund. Because that’s what kids want in a cartoon. The black guy from The Thing, and that guy from Eaten Alive.
 03. Oh hey, it’s a new continuity!
I have to admit that I like the idea of being able to reshape a comic book mythos over and over again ad nauseum – the possibilities are endless! Witness as Norman Osborne is… Norman Osborne, not The Green Goblin. Hell, even Gwen Stacy has been re-invented as a nerd who hasn’t had her neck broken by Peter Parker. And there’s not a single Skrull in sight.
04. I have low expectations and am easily amused
Which is odd because I always insist that the saying "If you turn your brain off you can enjoy this popcorn movie" is a tired excuse for liking Ghost Dad or whatever godawful movie you like for some reason. Hell, I’ve been watching Honey West for three days straight, and while I enjoy the hell out of Anne Francis, it’s nice to have a break from time to time.
 05. I don’t have a #5, but let me tell you a story.
Back in the mid-to-late ‘70s, a children’s show on PBS called The Electric Light Company showed little live-action skits based on Spider-Man that apparently frightened me so much that I would run out of the room screaming and/or crying. I think this might be the reason why I didn’t really attach myself to comic books until well into my late teens and I might have been trying to make up for the fact that I was such a pussy child when I was younger. I didn’t really have a childhood. You might have been reading comic books when you were seven, but I had piano lessons. And I wanted to play violin.
All of these factors combine into what can only be described as a light smile running across my face. The Spectacular Spider-Man is, at the very least, harmless. And as far as I’m concerned, the world could use a little more Spider-Man.
Presentation
While it’s not the hallmark of "art," I do appreciate a widescreen aspect ratio, even with my children’s television programming. The Spectacular Spider-Man has made the leap to 16x9, and I’m assuming the print was pulled from an original digital source, because Attack Of The Lizard is pretty much pristine. I say "pretty much" because I don’t trust my own judgment. I am a fraud.
The audio side is, as to be expected, a little on the hyperactive side. Not only is it a cartoon, it’s an action-style cartoon. Aimed at children. Children like (or at the very least are distracted by) loud, clanging, rapidly shifting noises. It even comes in a full 5.1 sound mix, so you can annoy your neighbors, who will knock on your door at 2 in the morning wondering why you’re watching a Spider-Man cartoon at such an ungodly hour when you’re 27, not 12.
 Extras
This is where the disc fails: all you get is The Spectacular Spider-Man Music Video as seen in theaters! Their choice of punctuation not mine, by the way. The song is performed by the band with the most ridiculous name to be featured on a children’s television show: The Tender Box. No commentary, no isolated music score, no making-of, no animated menu screens: it might be better this way. It gives me time to concentrate on Tarsem’s The Fall instead.
The Bottom Line
Considering that I haven’t paid attention to kid programming since the late ‘80s, I can imagine that there is much, much worse to be had in the field. The Spectacular Spider-Man: Attack Of The Lizard at the very least doesn’t feel like a condescending advertisement for action figures, even though it probably is. Oh! And it didn’t even make me cry. That is very important to me.
|
