7.8? Gimme a break.

Rating: Null/10 (4 November 2002)

This is a good action movie featuring a very popular geek icon, so much like with Lord of the Rings, said geeks are swarming the IMDB to give it 10's up the wazoo.
It IS a good movie but people seem to be ignoring all the flaws that bring it down from the "great" status because it's a movie remake of a part of their childhood that doesn't suck. I'll balance that out with a quick summary of the bad things:
The special effects are in all-too-obvious CG. In most movies this is pretty hard to notice, but here the action is entirely in CG, so it's very obvious in the way Spiderman is animated. In one scene he has the normal, human running animation, then in the next he has that videogame-looking animation, and then in another scene his costume is a different colour depth and lighting. It detracts from the movie.
Then, there's the acting. I thought the only stand-outs were the ones playing Green Goblin and Jameson the newspaper editor (probably because they're interesting characters). McGuire as Spiderman does a decent job, but when he talks as Spiderman he still talks like a geek, it feels out of character. Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane is probably the lowest point of the movie, she constantly has that annoying, goofy smile on her face that just makes you want to reach into that TV screen, pull her out with one hand, and slap her as hard as you can with the other.
Finally, when it's not a plot-advancing scene, the dialogue is usually uninteresting. It's a good movie, just don't be fooled by the high score and expect something great.
(For my own personal curiosity, could someone reading this and about to write a comment of their own tell me if Peter Parker is supposed to be an 18yo? I've never read the comics, but I always assumed he was a twenty-something at least.)