Highly Disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (22 June 2002)

Well, what to say? I admit, I did not know what to expect from this movie, I was just interested in whether all that hype was justified. It definitely wasn´t. The "spidrous" part of the story is really thin, the movie only has some depth in the development of the love story between Peter and MJ. The special effects are far from being a new landmark. When Spiderman travels the streets like Tarzan, I cannot help being reminded of some Play Station (TM) animations. Willem Dafoe must have been offered an awful lot of money as a compensation for being pushed into such a lousy script. But what is most appalling is an almost complete lack of humor. Good fantasy action movies (not e.g. "First Blood", which is to be taken serious) should contain a fair amount of humor. The audience ought to realize that the movie doesn´t take itself too serious. I clearly miss this aspect.
A well defined target group for Spiderman are 6- to 10-year old boys, who watch it, talk about it on schoolyard the next day, and then forget about it, as there should be a fresh Disney animation at their theatre.