Mediocre

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 2002)

I have to say I was a pleasantly surprised by Spider-Man. I've never really like movies based on comic books, other than Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and the Superman films with Christopher Reeve. Spider-Man was much better than I had anticipated. It had some really wonderful action scenes, not just hard-pounding, visceral thrill-rides, but scenes that really excited you and made you wanna stand up and shout "Go get 'em, Spider-Man!" It thankfully didn't score the action sequences with the latest "rock music" like The Matrix did. Sam Ramai definately made some effort to not make Spider-Man as dated as The Matrix will be in 10-20 years.
Tobey Maguire and William Dafoe have always been excellent actors. I really like Maguire's performance in Cider House Rules. But beyond that, the acting was wooden, especially in some key moments such as the scene with Uncle Ben in the station wagon, and the final graveyard scenes. The actors, especially Kirsten Dunst, sounded like they were reading lines rather than speaking. It wasn't the writing, just the performances, and it really hurt the film most during many of the emotional or philosophically important scenes. This is what really brought the film down to a mediocre C level. Action, special effects, and heroic derring-doo don't make up for weak performances. Allot of this film is for Joe Sixpack, who goes to the movies for laughs and action and snickers at everything else. If it wasn't for the fact that it's attached to the Spider-Man comic book, the film would have been forgotten in just a few short years.