Oops! They did it again...

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2002)

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can. Or a Batman. Or an X-Man. Yeah, here we are again, another summer blockbuster based on a classic superhero. The plot is exactly the same as all the others, with the exception that instead of having a strong male lead we seem to have a pretty version of that nerdy guy from Road Trip. Oh dear.
Every single element in this film is utterly predictable, but it's also one of the dumbest films I've ever seen. Why didn't Peter Parker immediately go to a doctor after being bitten by a genetically-enhanced spider? Surely there's a lawsuit in there: "I was bitten by a spider and as a result I have become a crappy computer-generated caricature, swinging from building to building and in and out of massive plotholes and de riguer action movie cliches."
And as for Mary-Jane whatever, at one point in the film (hopefully intentionally) she refers to herself as "stupid". How stupid can you get? You almost get raped at knifepoint, only to be predictably saved by Spider-Man, and then start dancing about happily in the rain as if a billion puppies with pink daisies for tales are licking your face and pooing chocolate. YOU JUST ALMOST GOT RAPED AT KNIFEPOINT. Hopefully the next movie will deal with Mary Jane's post-traumatic stress disorder. Now there's a movie: imagine her at one of those support groups in Fight Club: "I was almost raped at knifepoint only to be saved by Spider-Man, who OBVIOUSLY ISN'T Peter Parker, despite the fact that I saw him in school the other day with webs coming out of his hands and lightning-fast reactions. Which is something that I see on a daily basis."
As with all other directors of blockbuster superhero movies, Sam Raimi's name is completely inconsequential as all of these films are so heavily reliant on what can be achieved with computer-aided trickery. Anyone could have directed this movie, the only thing that made it a Raimi film is the now-standard Hollywood gimmick of referencing the director's oeuvre: this time it's the sequence in which the Green Goblin has an argument with himself in front of the mirror, a reference to the nihilistically brilliant scene in Evil Dead 2 where Bruce Campbell's reflection strangles him. This gimmick keeps the director's fans happy, masking the fact that this film is just another product of the Hollywood production line. That's how it works these days, there's no imagination involved, it's just up to the CPU of a computer. As for the character animation, no matter how many millions of dollars Hollywood throws at it, it just ain't gonna look right. You can represent a human, but it's physically impossible to simulate one, they're just too complex, too unique. Just think about all the money Hollywood has wasted trying to achieve this.
I also counted at least ten (10) continuity errors, just simple things like the position of character's hands and the expressions on their faces between shots. If a director or editor can't handle the basest of film-making rules, what hope have they got on a big-budget Hollywood film? Well, judging by Spider-Man, none, obviously. I can imagine quizzing Raimi on this, and I know what his answer would be: "Well, this one goes up to eleven..."