Disappointing to the point of being poor

Rating: 4/10 (14 May 2002)

SPOILERS ALERT!
I have to say I really did not enjoy this film very much. While the general ideas were good the execution was extremely poor.
First, the positives:-
The story was very true to the comics and no real liberties were taken.
Willem Dafoe was very good as the Goblin ( even if the character, like most of the others, was very poorly fleshed out and realised ).
Unfortunately that is all the positive things I can say about the film.
Now, the negatives:-
My first, and main, criticism of the film is it's pacing. The film never feels settled. It tries so hard to add deep, meaningful scenes to the characters that it rushes through the action sequences and their consequences ( the first moment that the Goblin appears must last about 30 seconds and leaves you totally bewildered ).
Second, the deep meaningful scenes feel very false with poor acting, probably due to the awful script. The final scene, while working nicely in terms of the storyline in regard to the comics, feels very flat and totally out of place ( as do most of the scenes between Mary Jane and Peter Parker ). And, for a film with so many scenes the lesser characters are poorly fleshed out ( Harry Osbourne and Aunt May in particular ). The only relationship I thought was well executed was that between Peter Parker and Uncle Ben.
Next I have to criticise most of the acting, Tobey Macguire in particular. The scene where he is mourning his Uncle's death is simply him sitting on his bed with glycerine in his eyes looking slightly morose and reading his lines.
Finally, I felt the CGI scenes were poorly done, looking blatantly obviously like CGI characters ( Spiderman in particular ). I sincerely hope that the productions of Daredevil and The Hulk are not using the same special effects company.
I really wanted to enjoy this film. I was very excited to hear that Marvel were finally getting big productions of their characters and after the brilliant X-Men I had very high hopes for this, but I am afraid that Sam Raimi and co. have let me down. Here's hoping Daredevil and The Hulk can make up for it!