Spidey Purists, Take Note!

Rating: Null/10 (7 July 2004)

While I enjoyed this big-budget sequel very much, my inner-teenager who read The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man, Marvel Team-Ups, and the old Marvel Tales re-hashes wonders one thing: Where's the chatter?
That was the coolest thing about Spidey! He would get under his foes' skin with the constant wise-cracking. He was a joker, a motormouth. It was his relentless head games that made the action so sweet in the original comics! That's why I'm not digging the Tobey Maguire casting...the wide-eyed vulnerability should be giving way to the razor wit by now.
Then there was this little issue (SPOILER warning!): Spider-Man has the strength to stop a runaway locomotive. Why, then, did his half a dozen punches to Doc Ock's face do little or no damage? Aunt May at least broke his sunglasses with her umbrella handle!
Spider-Man pummels him to no effect? Huh? How's that work? Also, I cringed to see the web-slinger's "secret" identity thrown out to anyone who was ever curious. And that scene where he's lifted and passed overhead in the train car? Oh, brother.
Don't get me wrong; I had fun with this movie. Raimi did some excellent work (the "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" montage was classic!). But those of you who read the comics as a kid or have enjoyed the recent Ultimate Spider-Man series will understand what I'm saying. Tobey is a decent Parker, but a listless crime fighter. I'd have cast Topher Grace (Eric Foreman from That 70s Show) as the wall-crawler. Geekier build, quicker comic delivery. And I'd have hired that Brian Michael Bendis guy from the Ultimate series to do the screenplay.