Get this guy some Prozac!

Rating: 7/10 (12 August 2004)

THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN HERE!!!! I must confess to an irrational affection for Toby McGuire at the outset, because that's the only way I can really explain actually enjoying this movie at all. What started out with some promise, quickly declined into a exploration of Peter Parker's relentless depression and his depressing life as a poorly paid freelance photographer and sometime university student. By the film's midpoint, I wanted to shout out "Get some therapy Peter!" -- or at least some good medication. I mean, this guy is so depressed the webs stop shooting out of his palms, his super strength begins to fade, his resolve to be a good guy shrivels until all we're left with is, well, Peter Parker. His Spiderman alter-ego has lost what ever ego it had and Parker slinks around, whining about his lot in life, irresolute and faced with irreconcilable differences with his lady love, Mary Jane Elliott. Meanwhile, he's ignoring the evil mechanical octopus -- Doc Ock -- who wants, for no explained reason, to blow up the city. In his spare time, Peter's irrationally confessing that he's responsible for his uncle's murder and trying in vain to hang onto a fading friendship with his vain best friend. (Also irrational and unexplained: Peter Parker pays rent on a New York City apartment while his aunt is having her house foreclosed on. You mean this guy couldn't move home and give old auntie the rent money for all those years of good meals and motherly advice?) All this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it is increasingly sad and depressing. The action picks up toward the end when Peter manages to talk the silly octopus into self destructing and becomes resolute once more in his determination to save the world and deny himself the pleasures of his despairing life. Of course, Mary Jane is on hand to cheer him on with probably the silliest walk off line in movie history to date: "Go get 'em tiger." How much did they have to pay Kirsten Dunst to utter that lame line? I'm sure it's much more than you'll save by being one of the 9 people in America who hasn't paid to see this film.