Fun For Adults And Kids Alike

Rating: 7/10 (15 January 2015)

Sam Riami's "Spiderman" is a fun comic book movie, but it is not a great one
Plot In A Paragraph: Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is a nerdy high school student who lives with his Auntie May and Uncle Ben, he hangs about with his best friend (and seemingly only friend) Harry Osborne (James Franco) and lusts after the girl next door Mary Jane Watson (Kristen Dunst) Peter's life is changed for ever when he's bitten by a radio active spider on a school field trip. Once bitten he developed an amazing powers and transforms himself into the superhero Spiderman. Unfortunately Harry's dad Norman Osborne (Willem Defo) has also developed some superpowers and he has transformed himself into the deadly Green Goblin.
I had a few problems with this, the first being the menacing Green Goblin looked like a bad guy from the "Power Rangers" TV show and at times you could see his mouth was not moving when dialogue was coming out!! The wisecracking, sarcastic Spidey from the comics is nowhere to be seen. The ending borrowed heavily from the comic book "The Night Gwen Stacey Died" but didn't have the courage to actually go through with killing off a main character. Another problem for me was, I didn't find Maguire's Peter Parker/Spiderman or Dunst's Mary Jane that interesting. Willem Defo and James Franco were much more interesting as the deranged Father and neglected son.
Now on to the good parts. Defo and Franco were both very good. The action scenes were well done, and for the most part the CGI is not that obvious. Cliff Robertson, Rosemary Harris and in particular JK Simmons are very good in their supporting roles. Maguire does well enough in both roles, and Dunst is attractive enough for us to understand Parkers obsession, and she plays a fine damsel in distress. I enjoyed Bruce Campbell, Octavia Spencer and Elizabeth Banks in their small roles.
Overall not as good as it could have been, but still enjoyable enough.