Spiderman  Forever Ruined

Rating: 1/10 (4 May 2003)

There are spoilers in this review.
First of all, the casting of Tobey Maguire for the lead role is the film's biggest mistake. With his pointy lip, jumbo ears, big nose, and squeaky voice, he resembles Screech from Saved By The Bell (I take it Dustin Diamond wasn't available). Much like Michael Keaton in Batman, Maguire doesn't even remotely resemble the title character. Since we're talking about miscast superheroes, thank god they didn't make that Superman movie starring Nicholas Cage.
Maguire isn't the only miscast actor in this dud. Aunt May is annoying, Kirsten Dunst is a terrible actress and Willem Dafoe as the squeaky-voiced Green Goblinwell, let's just say that boy aint right. They emasculated the J. Jonah Jameson character; in the comic book he's a huge, scary, angry editor who resembles a wrestling character, but in the film he's a meek, squeaky-voiced, accountant-looking guy with all the screen presence of Droopy the dog. What is it with the squeaky voices? About the only actor who resembles one of the characters is Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben, who doesn't die of a heart attack as he did in the comic book. Couldn't they keep anything authentic?
You know all those really cool special effects showing Spiderman looping through the city between the buildings? Well, about ninety-seven percent of the film contains scenes that are not that. Which is to say that three percent of the film doesn't contain scenes that are boring and stretched out endlessly until you want to gouge out your eyeballs with a rusty spike. The chemistry between Maguire and Dunst is ice-cold.
There are long stretches of boring, pointless scenes that do nothing for the film, such as the wrestling scene. Parker wants money to buy a car so he can impress MJ. What was the point of all this? Spiderman should be out saving people's lives and stopping crime, not worrying about getting money for a car.
This film is laced with continuity and character problems. The Green Goblin has absolutely no reservations about destroying a balcony full of people, including his own son, and yet when the people on the bridge throw trash at him how does he react? By letting them throw trash at him. Why didn't he just blow them away? And just because Osborne kills the board of directors does not make their decision non-binding. If Osborne was thrown out for being inept, it's almost assured that the new board of directors would do the same thing. And the ending is a real problem: Harry blames Spiderman for his father's death, but how would Harry know that? Spiderman would have to tell Harry that he killed his father, in which case he would have to tell him that
a) it was an accident
b) his father was really the Green Goblin
This dry, pointless, barren film has singlehandedly sucked all the fun and joy out of Spiderman forever.