Cheese-Fest

Rating: Null/10 (17 May 2002)

All right. I am having a hard time figuring out what to say in this review without being a horrible, over-analytical, high-standards party pooper. So I'm just going to tell it like it is and hope that I'm not breaking any hearts here. Spider-Man is cheesy. I fully understand that superhero movies in general tend to get on the campy side, but this is just ridiculous. And let it be known that I am primarily talking about the screenplay here people - it was awful. To the point where I absolutely groaned out loud at least 5 or 6 times. Thankfully, I was able to stifle the rest.
That said, the most distressing moments for me were clearly the high points for the rest of the lemmings in the audience at the 7pm opening night showing at the Boston Common Theater (you know who you are). It's been a while since I witnessed such a high degree of repeated and inappropriate emotional outpouring from the audience. It was better than a sitcom laugh track, not to mention the mad applause that kept breaking out every time Spidey did something notable. Anyway, this tangent does have a point, and that point is that obviously a lot of people enjoyed this movie on a profound level, and who am I to rain on their respective parades?
Aside from reaching new heights in dialogue predictability, Spider-Man also was extra-lame in the character development department. After geeky Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is bitten by a genetically engineered spider, he turns into a boy with spider powers. I'm fine with that part. But his understanding and mastery of his new powers are far too rapid and should have been fleshed out a lot more. Unlike the comic book, where Peter uses his nerdiness to create his own web shooters, the movie hero actually has organic webs flying out of his wrists, which in all honesty is just kind of gross. And more importantly, a great opportunity for the character to become more of a self-made superhero (part of the Spider-Man appeal) is lost. The perfect casting of Maguire becomes irrelevant because the screenplay doesn't allow for him to achieve the creative and intellectual depth that we want to believe he possesses. The comments that other characters in the film make about his brilliance aren't really backed up.
Willem Dafoe is nice and evil (just the way I like him), but the goofy and one-dimensional Green Goblin does very little besides cackle malevolently and whizz in and out of Manhattan on a flying metal surfboard to wreak havoc upon things. Sure, we get the story of his fall to the dark side, but even his alternate persona is pretty flat. A scene where he actually converses with himself in the mirror Jekyl-and-Hyde style seals the deal: this is just stupid. Kirsten Dunst is cute and perky, as ever, in the role of Mary Jane, Peter's long time unrequited love. I don't have any complaints about her particular performance as she's pretty much everything you're looking for in a damsel in distress. And she gets bonus points for having the good sense to at least fight back and kick her attackers in the crotch before Spider-Man shows up to rescue her.
There are still a couple of good things to be said. With the exception of one climbing-up-a-building scene where Spidey seems way too CGI, the effects are good. His super-fast reflexes make for some fun (if overused) matrix-esque action sequences. His web powers are also really cool. I mean, there is a lot of money to be made in swinging from skyscraper to skyscraper across the city in less than 5 minutes. Imagine what commuters would pay to hitch a ride with him instead of fighting for a cab!
All in all, I was bitterly disappointed. Next time I go see a summer blockbuster, I vow to go in with my expectations set at a more appropriate level.