Swing baby swing!

Rating: 7/10 (25 May 2002)

Sam Raimi has created one enjoyable ride. It seems without question after watching Spider-man that Raimi is a comic book fan. This film litteraly plays out like the so many paneled stories in the Spiderman series, and even the shots look like art work taken from many of the books. A particular shot of Spider-man getting hit with a grenade seems like a drawing lifted from the artists pages.
The casting is quite good. Maguire who is usualy bad as a leading man excels here cause Peter Parker is a young kid who is cocky yet very unsure about the weight and burden now put on him with his new superpowers. This forces Maguire to take the role of a person who doesn't have a lot of confidence but must do what is right, and it suits him very well. Dunst is fine as Mary Jane, and who can't like Dafoe as the Green Goblin.
Also while I knew the story of Spiderman's origin, Raimi gives the audience plenty of suspense in telling the already familiar story. Some of the acting between Mary Jane and Parker is a bit contrived, maybe sometimes even a little long winded, but at least they have a chemistry on screen. It also looks like they created the most memorable on screen kiss this year so far...
Also the swinging special effects look neat, can't say I've seen anything like it before and it's very refreshing. But what would be even more refreshing would have been to have more J Jonah JAMESON!!! Man that actor was a scream!!! If anything he captured the spirit of this film, "dumb fun".
Rating 7.5 out of 10