A Brief Reaction to the Debut of Spiderman: What's With That Name

Maybe if they turned off the dark, I could finally get rid of these goddamn sunglasses.

After months of previews, injuries, rewrites and bad reviews and, undoubtedly in an effort to recoup some of the money the producers threw down the proverbial drain, "Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark" finally debuts this week.  We guess if you spend $70 million, it just can't go away. 

As you may remember, we were fortunate enough to get to see the show as it was originally intended.  In addition to questioning whether it would ever actually open, we suggested that it needed an almost complete rewrite, including jettisoning the awful Greek spidery, woman thing, Arachne.  Well, the producers must read The Project (though we struggle to figure out which one of our 34 followers they are) because that's basically what they did, canning Julie Taymor and minimizing the role of Arachne and expanding upon the show's one bright spot - The Green Goblin.  The result?  Well, according to the New York Times, the show still kinda sucks.  Apparently, the only thing that was interesting about the original show was how bad it was.  Who knew?  Maybe they should have just renamed it "Spiders on a Plane" and moved on. 

It really is too bad that they couldn't have made it better.  We would have considered going back but now, the chances of spending more money on this debacle fall somewhere between LeBron coming up big in the Finals and Herman Cain being our next president. 

For anyone who may have missed our original, sprawling review of the show, our esteemed editor (The Mrs.) suggested we repost it.  We call it "How To Build an Atomic Bomb on Broadway."  It might be your only chance to truly understand the original.