Superman's early years?

Rating: 7/10 (28 March 2006)

While "Spiderman" may be the darkest, most morally ambiguous, (and probably the best), superhero movie since "Batman Returns" it's hard to shake off the feeling that it is nothing more than a reprise of the Superman franchise rather than something original and out there on it's own. Director Sam Raimi may have given the film the look and feel of a Batman movie, down to the sets and Spiderman's tight-fitting costume but his derring-do, his heroic rescues and his inability to tell the girl he loves who he is, all belong to "Superman".
Tobey Maguire is a nicely oddball bit of casting as Spiderman. He makes the teenage avenger a more morally ill-at-ease character than an older actor may have done and Kirsten Dunst is a plucky, spirited, if under-written heroine but as the Green Goblin Willem Dafoe doesn't quite cut the mustard even if he does get the best special effects.