The AMAZING Spider-Man!

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2010)

Recently, superhero films have been an extremely effective genre in Hollywood. It is undeniable that superhero films are the movies that endure the most hype these days. If made correctly, these kind of movies offer plenty of action, thrills, and character, while also being impressively designed and using some of the best special effects teams around. Bryan Singer's "X-MEN" was the movie that introduced the superhero film to the 21st century. It raised the bar so high, the audiences were astounded and it seemed like no other movie, superhero or otherwise, could surpass it. That bar has definitely been raised to new levels many times since then with films such as the spectacular "THE DARK KNIGHT" and, to a lesser extent, "IRON MAN". However, "SPIDER-MAN" is nothing to sneeze at either. High school nerd Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) lives with his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) and Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson). His next door neighbor happens to be the beautiful Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), whom Peter has loved since "before he even liked girls". Peter is also best friends with Harry Osborn (James Franco), whose dad is Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe). Norman is overly ambitious with his company, Oscorp (which supplies weapons and special equipment to the military), and wants to give Harry everything that he never had in his younger days. One life-changing day, Peter's class goes on a field trip to Columbia University's Science Department. During the tour, Peter is bitten on the hand by a genetically enhanced "super-spider" that escaped from an exhibit. That night, Norman is testing one of his company's performance enhancers on himself. The experiment goes horribly wrong, and Norman becomes the incredibly strong yet viciously insane Green Goblin. Meanwhile, Peter has undergone a night of dizziness and a stomach ache due to the spider bite. In the morning, he finds that he also has gained heightened strength, agility, can spin webs from his wrists, climb walls, and a certain "spider-sense" to warn him of danger. Mary Jane and Peter become much closer friends, despite the fact that she is now dating Harry. She also thinks she loves Spider-Man after he saves her life twice. Goblin is suspicious of Spider-Man's true identity. He also feels threatened by Parker, but has not yet made the connection between the two. They finally square off in a fantastic showdown that is also one of the best scenes in the entire movie. But, at the end of the day, "SPIDER-MAN" still has its faults. For example, what is Goblin's plan? We understand his revenge against the Quest Aerospace officials and the Oscorp board members, but what else is there? He has a personal vendetta against Spider-Man, but why? Just to write it off as him being insane is not sufficient. Up next is the cinematography during the scenes of Spider-Man swinging through the city. They play and look like a video game, with the camera seeming to be too distant and too close at the same time. The feeling of all the tension, fear, and confusion of his new powers is actually not felt at all; he acts more like a kid in a candy shop. Instead of keeping the camera a reasonable distance from him so we can see how he uses his surroundings to display his amazing powers, the camera is tight on him, right over his shoulder most of the time. Strangely, the cinematography for the action scenes is quite good. The only scene of this kind that works in this film is the ending, which was filmed with the Spyder-Cam. It was a very effective technique that was used for all the swinging and fighting scenes in "SPIDER-MAN 2", and I would assume it was used in #3 as well, but I haven't seen that one yet. As a matter of fact, everything in #2 is improved over #1. The acting, action pieces, dialogue, and especially the villain. Nevertheless, everything in this film still comes together reasonably well, with only a few drawbacks.
Also Recommended: "SUPERMAN" (1978), "X-MEN" (2000), "X2" (2003), "SPIDER-MAN 2" (2004), "BATMAN BEGINS" (2005)
THIS REVIEW IS DEDICATED TO ANYONE, LIVING OR DEAD, INVOLVED WITH THE MAKING OF "SPIDER-MAN".