Greatest super hero movie to date!

Rating: 8/10 (4 May 2002)

Going into the Spider-Man movie, one cannot expect to see some sort of artistic opus. But that's not to say that this can't be a great movie. In fact, Spider-Man delivers alot more depth than most action flicks. The story line actually makes sense. In so many super hero movies (cough cough Batman cough cough) the rationale used to explain why the superhero or the villain chooses the life that they do seems far-fetched, but you excuse it because its a superhero movie. In Spider-Man, however, we can really believe that Peter Parker would be compelled to become the Amazing Spider Man because of the series of events that led to his Uncle's death.
The casting was excellent as well. While many people said that Toby Maguire was wrong for this role, whoever chose to cast him knew what they were doing. People forget that Spider-Man is essentially a nerd. A skinny and innocent looking actor is perfect for this role. William DeFoe did an amazing job with his role, especially the scitzophrenic conversation he has with his own reflection. The rest of the cast does a good job as well.
Something that my friend pointed out to me about this movie that I thought was very interesting was that Spider-Man never kills anyone. All the villains die by their own actions, which makes sense since the character of Peter Parker seems too harmless to actually kill anyone. He's out to defend people, never to take the offensive.
There are some problems. There are plot holes, like the fact that the police come to arrest Spider-Man when he hasn't done anything, but they are forgivable. Every now and then someone shouts out a cliched line like "We'll meet again Spider-Man!" And the love scenes between Toby Maguire and Kristen Dunst get to be a little over the top from time to time, but otherwise the movie is excellent. This will be added to my DVD collection as soon as it comes out, and I highly reccomend it.