Possibly the Best First-Time Superhero Film Since Reeve's Superman of the 70's

Rating: 9/10 (6 May 2015)

The first time an iconic superhero flies across the big screen in his (or her) tights, cape and/or mask, the end product often has mixed results. The bar was set pretty high with the first "Superman" film starring Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, and Gene Hackman, still probably the finest superhero film ever produced. The first "Batman" film, directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton in the title role and Jack Nicholson as the Joker had problems, some wonderful moments in between lagging scenes. (Some people have called "Batman" the best mediocre film ever produced! Or is it the most mediocre film among good ones?) Either way, the end result may or may not hit the mark. Luckily, especially for fans of the original comic book, the first Spider-man film, based on the character created by Stan Lee, works on a level towards the original Superman film.
When you boil down the raw elements needed to create a good film, you need three things: a good premise, good actors, and a good screenplay. And let's not under-appreciate the last one. While a good screenplay still may save mediocre acting, often the opposite isn't true. In Spider-man, all three are present in spades. Let's look at them in terms of how they are portrayed in the current film.
The Premise. Well, the premise must be a good one because, since its inception in the 1960's, Spider-man has become one of the most important comic heroes alongside Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. However, Lee brought a bit of a twist to the character. Like other superhero characters who have some magic-like abilities, in this case the abilities of a spider inside a human body, Spider-man's alter-ego, Peter Parker is a troubled adolescent suffering from the typical angst of all young people around that age. Unlike Superman, Parker is still finding out where he fits in. In terms of the present film, the original premise, although updated slightly for the 21st century, is still adhered to. Parker/Spider-man is an angst-ridden kid, loving a faraway female, trying to navigate school, and dealing with bullies.
The Acting. The acting takes us right into the heads of the three most important characters: Spider-man/Peter Parker (Toby Maguire), the Green Goblin/Norman Osborne (Willem Dafoe), and Mary Jane Watson, a.k.a. MJ, (Kirsten Dunst). Maguire offers both the angst-riddled teen and the resolved superhero. I particularly appreciated the way he was portrayed in the film. Not a bad-looking kid but not a GQ cover model either. He's rather nerdy, a science wiz, like Lee had envisioned him, but not the best at getting dates. The absolute stand-out is Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin/Mr Osborne. Character actors like Dafoe, similar to Gene Hackman as Lex Luther, are the best suited to play villains. Dafoe is terrific as a kind of Marvel equivalent of Two-Face, having two sides to him. On one had he's the upper-crust businessman who's tough but confident. However, the other side, the Green Goblin side, emerges and confronts the "waking" self. He becomes a kind of split personality that few actors can pull off, and the scenes in which the two sides speak to one another are entirely believable. Also honorable mention to Dunst who is a very attractive high school girl but certainly not someone who will be entering teen beauty pageants. She attracts the likes of Peter Parker at a very human level.
The screenplay, probably the most important ingredient, works well, and much better than the Keaton/Burton "Batman". Parker is a typical high school kid just trying to navigate through school, being cared for by his adoptive uncle and aunt since the death of his parents. Then a strange circumstance changes his life: he's bitten by a radioactive spider which gives him spider-like abilities. A nice series of sequences shows him testing his new-found talents. At first Parker uses them to earn money in trashy athletic events, but then he switches gears and decides to use them to combat evil. Certainly we know this will be Spider-man's calling but a conversation with his uncle puts him on track, reminiscent of Brando as Superman's father.
On another front, the father of a friend of Parker's, Norman Osborne, is head of a tech company testing a machine which would improve human metabolism in soldiers, probably for the military, a bit like Captain America. Osborne built the company, but now the board of directors are selling the company out from under him. He retaliates by testing the metabolic-altering machine on himself and hence a different side emerges after the experiment. Simultaneously, there's Mary Jane, the distant love of Parker, who knows he exists but is dating a much more athletic and popular guy at school. Eventually, these three stories clash in a wonderful and believable climax. Parker becoming a crime-fighting disguised hero, Osborne becoming an adversary of Spider-man, and Dunst caught in the middle.
The story is about transformations. All three characters undergo transformation during the course of the story. Not all seem to relish this transformation and none of them understand fully what it means. Some of them embrace the transformation more than others, but in the end it's unclear whether or not the characters are better for what has happened to them. Two survive the transformation while another doesn't. And that's the mark of a great story: when what seems the inevitable outcome isn't quite what the characters and the audience foresaw. Ultimately, it comes down to caring about the characters and what transpires which evolves them into something else, be they heroic or villainous. Maybe that's the problem with many superhero films, the filmmakers forget that we need to be reminded to care about them, not just be awe-struck when they fly around.