Extremely Disappointing!!!!

Rating: 3/10 (5 May 2002)

The greatest(arguably) comic hero of all time was desecrated by this pathetic attempt at a film. Everything surrounding Spider-Man's character ---- viz his relationship with the Osbournes, Mary Jane etc was given way too much importance and time. The fact that this was supposed to be an action movie, not a glossed up love story eluded Director Sam Raimi.The introduction to Spider-Man, who he was,how he came into existence, who he cared for, admired etc should have been done and over with in 20-25 minutes , with the rest being devoted to something more sinister than a love-struck guy saving and re-saving his love from the clutches of a maniac. The action scenes, specially the parts where he experiments with his new found powers were mostly "Matrix" rip-offs. The fight scenes were like taken directly out of a Jet Li film. This movie had no style whatsoever. I cant understand how you can take one of the coolest characters of all time and churn out a totally run of the mill movie like this one. The only impressive thing about the movie was Tobey MaGuire...who was pitch perfect. Kirsten Dunst was cute as hell. William Dafoe when out of the stupid/cheap green suit was fine. And about that Green Goblin Mask.....when are directors going to realize that not everything translates well from the Comic Pages to the screen. It was a fixed Mask....!!!!! You look stupid when you have more than a half dozen closeups of a bad guy with a fixed Mask.....It worked for Star Wars but that was the late seventies/early eighties....and now it just looks cheap. Perhaps the only cool action shot was the one where Spider-Man lands on a flagpole, but it came only as an after-thought right at the end. And what can I say about the ending....corny as hell. There was not an ounce of sophistication in this movie.
I, for one, have no idea where they spent the $125+ Million on. They should have taken a clue from X-Men who inspite of working within a budget just over half of this film provided excellent entertainment without overdoing either the character development/introduction or the action/story. I like Bryan Singer's X-men more than I liked it before I saw this. I feel cheated...disappointed. Damn it...!!! .