The awesome power of Sam Raimi and Stan Lee

Rating: 9/10 (18 January 2005)

Sam Raimi is awesome. Stan Lee is awesome. Stan Lee created Spider-Man, who is awesome. And then Stan Lee had a love-child with Sam Raimi - it was the long awaited 'Spider-Man' movie, and it was awesome. Sometimes even I don't understand what I'm talking about.
Growing up, I was a fan of the 'Spider-Man' cartoon that ran from 1994 to 1998. It was awesome. I never really collected the comics, I read the occasional one, and I still do, and the games on Super Nintendo were fun. One day, I picked up a Spider-Man comic, and at the end was a page from 'The Daily Bugle', announcing that 10 years of legal battles were over. A 'Spider-Man' movie would be made. I was so happy, that my head nearly exploded with happiness. Thankfully, any head explosions were avoided. I still don't quite understand what I'm talking about.
Onto the movie. Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is a science-geek who doesn't fit in at school, and whose only friend is Harry Osborne (James Franco), the son Norman Osborne (Willem Dafoe), a scientist and head-honcho of his own company. On a field trip (to genetics laboratory of all places), Peter is bitten by a spider (a genetically enhanced 'super-spider' no less). Naturally, instead of any negative side-effects, Peter finds he now possesses spider-like powers. Meanwhile, on the evil side of town, Norman Osborne is working on a chemical human performance enhancer. With the threat of his funding being pulled, Norman tests the prototype out himself, and it works perfectly, save for him going rather insane. With a super-hero in town and no super-villains in sight, Norman dubs himself 'the Green Goblin' and runs off to cause some chaos.
Any movie based on a comic is going to have mess around with the facts of the comic, the story, characters, order of events can't stay exactly the same. 'Spider-Man' is no different, but the core is the same. The reason for Peter Parker to be Spider-Man is there, the original moral of 'Spider-Man' is maintained throughout the whole movie - "with great power comes great responsibility". It was good to see the message was still there. Don't discredit it either, I can think of various examples where this message can be applied to the real world (American foreign policy, for instance).
The acting is the strongest point movie. Tobey Maguire does the whole geeky Peter / uber-cool Spider-Man thing so well. If I said to Randy Savage, a pro-wrestler and rapper, what Spidey did, I'd probably be killed straight away. Willem Dafoe is great as the insane Green Goblin, ditto Rosemary Harris as Aunt May. Better yet, was J.K. Simmons who seemed to be J. Jonah Jameson to a tee, and Jameson is cool. Speaking of cool, Bruce Campbell has a cameo. It might not be as Ash, but its still the King, baby. Bruce Campbell is awesome. I'm not even talking about the movie anymore, am I?
Unfortunately, the action scenes are the only real down point of the movie. Most of them very heavy on not-so-good CGI effects. I'm probably being a little unfair, as I think nearly all CGI effects are poor. That being said, I still enjoyed Spider-Man's showdown with the Green Goblin. Honestly, 'Spider-Man' never really seemed all that violent to me anyway, so it isn't much of a problem.
Action aside, 'Spider-Man' is still one of the best super-hero movies out there. Worth a look for anyone - 9/10