entertaining as far as it goes

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2004)

**SPOILERS**
First off, lets get something out of the way. Where has Tobey Maguire been hiding? He's very cute indeed . . . and a brilliant Peter Parker. The opening scenes before he got bitten really highlighted his vulnerability as a science geek, bullied by the 'in crowd' kids. His transformation into Spiderman was sensitively done as well, balancing his joy at having something that he could be good at, with the isolation of being so dramatically different to his peers. The romance between Peter and MJ was nicely handled as well, although I really think that she makes him jump through hoops for it. MJ knows that Peter loves her and she treats him like a security blanket. In a way, I was quite glad when he told her he didn't love her at the end of the film.
OK, those were the good things. Now the bad. Willem Defoe. I think he may have been channelling Raul Julia throughout filming. If anyone ever saw the truly abysmal StreetFighter film, they'll know what I'm talking about. A ridiculous caricature. And what was with that costume? Defoe is a fine actor, but there's little that even Olivier could have done with a costume that reveals only one's eyes through yellow plastic. I agree with many others in that there was far too much CGI in the film, and it didn't always look good. Hopefully, they'll rectify that for the next one. And as for the 'you mess with Spidey, you mess with all of us' stuff - I'm not even going to say anything. Mainly because I don't want to get flamed by all the fundamentalist gung-ho Yanks out there. Is that clear enough?
Overall, a great couple of hours entertainment, romance, action, teen angst, almost everything you could want. A great start to a franchise. But if you want to see a comic book to movie adaptation done brilliantly, go and see the first two batman films.