Marvel FINALLY gets it right

Rating: 8/10 (6 May 2002)

I've read a lot of comments on the Spider-Man film, now I add my own. First and foremost, I deem this movie to be a complete success on almost every level. Toby Maguire as Peter Parker? But of course! I also laughed when I saw him introduced for the first time, but no more. What were we wanting? Christopher Reeve? Parker is thin and short. He's NOT 6 foot 4 and 200 pounds. He's a geek. The guy IS Peter Parker. Kirsten Dunst is fantastic and sexy as Mary Jane Watson. Willem Dafoe is one of my favorite actors since The Last Temptation Of Christ, and other than his the corny scenes where he has dialogue with himself he's completely believable as Norman Osborne. I've read comments on this very board that Sam Raimi "failed on very level" and "betrayed everything the comics were about." Did we see the same film? The movie is comprised of a storyline torn straight from the most classic comic storylines from the death of Uncle Ben to the finale on the Brooklyn Bridge where The Goblin drops MJ (rather than Gwen Stacy as it was in the comics). The effects were seamless except for in one shot where Spidey uses the slingshot, that's pretty rubbery and fake looking I admit, but otherwise you really get the idea that this guy is in freefall throughout the city before shooting out a web and zipping to another location almost faster than the eye can see. As for the human element of the story, check out the backyard talk between MJ and Peter late at night if you don't think it's not chalk full of character moments. After screwing up time and again at attempts to get their characters on the screen (see the Captain America movie or the Punisher film), Marvel FINALLY got it right. Congratulations, Spidey, it's great to have you back. On the minus side, the film's score sucked royally. Danny Elfman (of MIB and Batman fame) gives us a score devoid of identity and identifiable moments. Elfman is in an official slump after this film and Planet Of The Apes. no comic book to movie adaptation has been truer to the source material and IMO it even surpasses the original X-Men. Both Star Wars II and X-Men II have BIG shoes to fill when they come out.