first impressions are always the best

Rating: Null/10 (11 May 2003)

This was a great first movie. With all due respect to Superman, this was probably the best of the 'modern' superhero movies. And it will probably stay that way. I really don't see the Hulk as quite the draw that Spider-Man is. And the Spider-Man sequels can't live up to the original. No matter how good they are, they can't. You just can't beat the story of the origin of the superhero. This is where Batman got it so wrong. Granted, it wasn't completely the fault of Batman's writers. His origin is not as good a story in terms of making a movie around it since he didn't really become Batman until many years after the incident that led to it.
Spider-Man has always been my favorite superhero for many reasons. One was that it has the guts to be set in New York City. Not Metropolis. Not Gotham. So we have no worries about why the Statue of Liberty or Grand Central Station has been moved from New York to this other city. Another reason is that Peter Parker is a reluctant superhero. He basically is only helping people out of guilt. That brings a definite human character/weakness to him, which makes it more real. Like many people with this gift, his first thought was not "How can I help mankind." It was "How can I use this to make money." My other main reason for preferring Spider-Man was changed for this movie. I was a little mad at first, but I got over it. Spider-Man got by with his brains. I still don't see why he couldn't have invented his web shooter as he does in every other incarnation. I'm just not accepting that it would be far fetched for a teenager to do it. No more far fetched than anything else in the movie. And they could have simply worked it into the plot that the spider powers HELPED him invent the web formula. Possibly having the formula come to him in a dream.
But that was really the only problem I had with the movie. I didn't mind the DNA-enhanced spider rather than a radioactive one. The original idea was definitely born in a different era where the effects radioactivity were obviously unknown. It seems comical now, but 60 years ago it wasn't totally unbelievable that a side effect to exposure to radiation could be to ENHANCE the body rather than harm it. Plus, the whole genetic engineering brings Spider-Man into the 21st Century.
I look forward to the sequels, but do not expect it to live up to the original.