One of the Better Comic Book Adaptions but not as good as the hype suggests

Rating: 5/10 (15 November 2005)

I would like to say firstly I am not a Comic Book nut and have in fact hardly read any. But I do like Comic Book/Superhero Movies.
Having seen a great many Comic Book Characters/SuperHeroes/Vigilantes brought to the big & small screens such as Darkman, The Flash, Batman, Spawn, X-Men, The Hulk, The Crow, Superman etc. I must say I did enjoy Spiderman and it was slightly better than I anticipated. I remembered seeing re-runs of the Nicholas Hammond TV Series in the late eighties when I was a teenager and thought them OK but a bit lame. I am not a fan of any of the Stars in Spiderman either (although I think Willem Dafoe is a good actor).
I found myself thoroughly entertained from beginning to end, however that is all this movie is ENTERTAINMENT. The fact that Peter Parker is bitten by the Spider in the beginning and no-one else is, is a little hard to swallow, why does it not bite other people then we could have loads of Spidermen!(in reality spiders mostly keep away from people). But if you don't think about the what if's etc. and go along for the ride it thoroughly entertaining fast paced fun.
There are the usual clichés, the mad scientist who must test his work on himself resulting in changes of mood and eventually becoming the villain (see The Fly & Hollow Man for other examples of this), the fight with the School Bully, and the ending is predictable.
I found the romantic Scenes between Tobey Maguire & Kirsten Dunst to be surprisingly the best parts of the film, and also the scenes where Willem Dafoe's personality is being taken over by his alter ego The Green Goblin.
Tobey Maguire's performance as Peter Parker was completely believable and having now seen him in the role I couldn't imagine anyone else playing it better, Kirsten Dunst was good as Mary Jane, I also though James Franco was good as Parker's friend and unbeknown to him the son of the principal villain Willem Dafoe, whose performance was as usual very good although a little over the top as the Goblin but this is the norm I guess with this type of film. I also thought Cliff Robertson was okay in his small part.
I prefer darker comic book films and found The Crow, Batman (1989), Batman Returns and X-men to be better films.
This Film is however is WAY BETTER than all the overrated Superman films (far too much humour)and The Hulk, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Catwoman, The Punisher, Daredevil, Elektra & Sam Raimi's own Darkman + all The Crow sequels.
I would give this film 5 1/2 or 6 out of 10