More than I expected

Rating: 7/10 (9 August 2002)

Sam Raimi was really a great director, an almost revolutionary innovator with the Evil Dead series and the author of an excellent noir like A Simple Plan, but in other cases (for example the last one starring Kevin "Stinky" Costner) he was very disappointing. So my expectations for Spider-Man were very low (I'm a die-hard batmanian!!). But, sometimes it happens again, the movie was better than I thought. In particular the first half, in my opinion the part that really interested Raimi: the developing of the mutation as a metaphor of Peter Parker's hormonal developing. Or a brilliant idea like the wrestling one to explain the use of a costume, necessary for a superhero but unusual in real life. The second half is more directed with the auto pilot, with the usual topics of comics movie (kidnapping of the girl, hero versus his nemesis, ecc.), but it doesn't diminish the good impression left by the first one. A last positive mention for Tobey Maguire and a negative one for Willem Dafoe (he is really overacting!) and the special effects, sometimes too evident. But it's better to do so, less accurate special effects and more attention to the screenplay, the exact opposite of the slaughter committed by Lucas to one of our favorite series (guess what?)