Very cool

Rating: 10/10 (6 May 2002)

I went to Spiderman last night with my wife and some friends. As the opening credits were playing, I was sitting there muttering to myself "please don't suck... please don't suck..." I went into the movie with VERY high hopes, but also with a foreboding feeling that I was going to be highly disappointed as I was with Dungeons & Dragons, LOTR and some other movie I went to see but don't remember what it was because it wasn't worth it.
Spiderman has ALWAYS been my #1 favorite superhero. I had Spidey underoos as a kid, whatched the cartoon religiously, and collected all sorts of spidey stuff when I was old enough to afford it.
I've read a lot of comments on the movie here, and both sides bring out good points, but a lot of people just missed the whole point to the movie.
Sam Raimi is one of my favorite directors. He does a really outstanding job on movies without having the budget that names like Ron Howard, Stephen Spielburg and George Lucas commands. I saw an interview with Sam on TV last week and he was scared that true Spidey fans would despise him forever on doing a hack job, but was confident that the movie would work out well. Which it did.
Tobey who? Never heard of him. The first thing I ever saw him on was the Letterman show where he sat there and kept getting irritated at Dave for making fun of him and the movie. Unfortunately, I had that distaste of him when I did go in, but I think he pulled it off quite well. The only other person I could think of (and this was YEARS ago) who may have had a better run as Spiderman would have been the late Brandon Lee... but he was almost too much of a "pretty boy" to effectively play a nerdy type.
Willem Dafoe is a great actor who was handed a cheesy role. I just don't mean for the movie, but in general. Jack Nicholson had to pull off the Joker, which he did.. Willem pulled off the GG. I wasn't too wild about the "biosuit" and agree with another viewer comment that it made him look like a Power Rangers bad guy, but what the heck.
Kirsten was "ok" as MJ. I love that she called him "Tiger"... but just that once. That was perfect. The upside down kiss was perfect. The gratuitous wet t-shirt shot was impressive. I think she had more chemistry with Aunt May than Peter and uncle Ben, but unfortunately, Cliff and Tobey didn't have enough time to really do too much.
The special effects worried me... I loved the web-slinging shots.. for the most part they were impressive and really fed my acrophobia. A few times some of the CG was... painful.
All in all... outstanding job. The changes from movie to comic were minimal and allowed smooth transitions. Back when spidey came out, radioactive everything was the huge news. Nowadays, it's genetics. Next movie, let's get some more wisecracks in there, and I would positively die if we get to see Venom and Carnage at some point... that was one of the most trying times in the life of Peter Parker, and contrary to what some of the people here think, Spiderman isn't about actionadventureshootemupandbeatupallthebadguys. Spiderman has a much more human element to it.
I hope Sam Raimi and the cast keep up the great work. The sequel is going to have to be twice as good as the first, otherwise people will be even more critical than they are now. Clean up the CG, a little bit more character development and interaction and let's let Spidey do a few more wisecracks. Good luck trying to make a Doc Oc or Rhino (especially one that doesn't look like a high school mascot). And stay away from the Spidey/X-Men union stuff. Yuck.