Too long, very little happens

Rating: 4/10 (27 January 2003)

This movie is way too long--over 2 hours, and it seems very long--for its simple, uneventful plot. I have read here that the movie deviates from the comic story in major ways. Some of the things left out--the whole Gwen Stacey thing, for example--might have helped here. Much of the final half of this movie just feels like empty space. It is as if the pacing of the movie was determined by James Franco, who is unbelievably irritating and slow in his role here as Peter's best friend. (I realize that he is probably supposed to play a kind of loser, but he didn't have to be that dim-witted, I don't think.)
The teenage angst stuff at the beginning worked well. But the movie was way too long, very little happened, Kirsten Dunst looked unattractive, the Goblin was boring, and the tone was sometimes too flighty.

****Possible Spoiler**** Because the tone is not sufficiently serious, and the characters are not well-developed (the whole prior dead lover guilt Gwen Stacey thing is left out) and because the movie wears out its welcome, Peter's declaration of non-love to Mary Jane at the end comes off as not only disappointing, but also as cruel, annoying and inexplicable. ***end of spoiler***