Spider-man, a superhero who falls flat

Rating: 3/10 (14 May 2002)

I was going into this movie expecting a light, fun, entertaining action movie, and for the most part I was right. I was interested in how Peter Parker was turned into spider-man, and I found the scenes where he came up with the concept for "spider-man" amusing, but once he decided to become a "superhero" I started looking at my watch. This movie did not hold my attention, and I found the costume of the Green Goblin laughable. The fight scene at the end was trite and EXTREMELY predictable. Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst are cute together, but they don't have very many scenes together. (Not that anyone would go to a movie like this expecting anything but a love interest that spider-man has to save). I think that this movie could have been a lot better if it was re-edited. It seems to jump for one part to another with no rhyme nor reason. Willem Dafoe's scenes where he is talking to the Green Goblin are interesting, but why was time getting the audience to pity the bad guy? Going into the movie you already now that something will happen to Mary Jane, and that Spider-man will save her and get rid of the bad guy, all the audience cares about is how it plays out. To me this movie was slow, (we didn't see the Green Goblin until 45 minutes into the movie) and never did anything to make me engage with the characters. Spider-man is a beautiful looking movie and we all know how great CGI can be, it no long impresses me to see how real they can make stuff look, now it is important to use CGI with a purpose. All in all the movie was slightly entertaining with way too much set up and a rather jumbled plot. But, it is light and for the most part it is fun