Spider-Man vs. Peter Parker

Rating: 6/10 (9 July 2002)

For me this felt like two films - Spider-Man and Peter Parker.

The latter is the story of a geeky kid amazingly transformed into a superhero while pursuing a career and the girl of his dreams. It is the most interesting part of the duo. On the plus side it had the reliable Toby Maguire portraying convincing teenage angst, laced with wide-eyed humour at his newly adopted powers. On the downside, I found Maguire and Kirsten Dunst a bit laconic at times, though fault probably lies with the helmsman Sam Raimi for his static handling of their scenes. They basically just stand and talk to each other while the music tries hard to drown them out. Couldn't they have walked or something? Parker takes to his new powers like a duck to water without ever really questioning or having any doubts about them. It all seemed a little too pat. Also, one major plot point - the identity of the car jacker - was a real give away, then never really dealt with.

As Peter Parker the movie dissolved into Spider-Man the movie it got tangled up in its own webbing. The action scenes were functional but never engaging or thrilling. One main problem was that the hero and villain were masked and thus not able to exude emotion or personality. The director tried to circumvent that a couple times, including the final battle, probably realizing the problem. Also, the web-spinning scenes were very cartoonish and I never had a sense of danger or of "being-there". Whenever Mary Jane was going to fall it was obvious that Spidey would swoop in and save her, thus there was no sense of danger. There's also a plot device in a fire that was telegraphed, hence making the "predictable" line seem like a bad in-joke. Somehow Spider-Man zipping around the tops of buildings just wasn't exciting to watch. I would have bet that it would be, as I'm sure the filmmakers did, but some things just don't come off well on film. It's just the way it goes. I remember my favourite shot from the old TV cartoon - it was of a two-fisted Spidey coming right at the camera. I can't remember any specific shot from this film that had the same thrilling effect.

It was nice to have the story of Peter Parker come to the big screen and see what they could do to Spider-Man with modern computer technology. Unfortunately, the latter was "not much." Now that the story of the geek gone vigilante has been told, it doesn't bode well for the sequels.