Absolutely unmissable!

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2002)

Having waited for well over a year for the release of this film I had a terrible fear that it wouldn't live up to my expectations. I was wrong to be concerned. This film lived up to all of my expectations - and then some! I am usually sceptical when it comes to comic book adaptations, mainly because many of them have a tendency to play things more for laughs, believing somehow that the movie going public won't accept the possibility of a "real-life" superhero. This may be true but everyone would like to believe such realities are somehow a possibility.
The actors performances were very impressive. Toby Maguire put in a trademark astounding performance. But the real star of this film was William Dafoe. Despite some occasionally ropy dialogue Dafoe was breath-takingly good as The Green Goblin.
Perhaps the only real problem that I had with the film was the Green Goblin's costume. I'm not entirely sure whether it was too 'cartoony' or it just transferred to CGI badly but something seemed wrong with it. It didn't always fit in with the rest of the scene perhaps as well as it could have. But this is a minor issue and in no way taints the overall feeling of the film.
Finally, kudos to Raimi for adding the original Spider-man theme at the end of the credits - a huge cheer went up in the cinema!