Good 1st half then falls apart

Rating: 6/10 (26 June 2009)

Sam Raimi brings Marvel's flagship character to the screen after years of development hell and legal wrangles over film rights.
Tobey Maguire stars as nerdy high school student Peter Parker who is bitten by a genetically altered spider and develops the proportionate abilities of a spider. After misusing his newly-given powers which indirectly causes the death of his Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson), he becomes the heroic Spider-Man and learns that "with great power comes great responsibility".
Raimi's smash hit blockbuster starts off brilliantly with its introductions to our characters with the cast ably filling out their roles, Maguire does a great job of conveying the right amount of awkwardness as Peter, Robertson and Rosemary Harris are a joy to watch as Uncle Ben and Aunt May and Willem Dafoe is well cast as industrialist Norman Osborn, the soon to be Green Goblin. Kirsten Dunst does an OK job in the role of Mary Jane Watson but the character, as written in the film, is a far cry from the cocky confident party goer from the comics and suffers because of that.
There's a deftness of touch to the opening hour with just the right amount of faithfulness to the comic book whilst updating certain aspects from the comic that would come across as awkward on screen (radioactive spiders and organic webshooters for example) In fact the film very much follows the first Superman film in its tone and pace with the origins of Spider-Man making up the majority of that first hour (as they did with Superman The Movie) Unfortunately once Spider-Man makes his debut in the film it all starts to fall apart and the film suddenly runs out of steam. And the main fault lies with the protagonist, the Green Goblin, whose storyline grinds to a halt once the subplot regarding the battle for control of his company is concluded. There's little reason for the Goblin to do what he does in the film bar the fact that he's angry that Spider-Man tried to stop his attack at Times Square (a very flat action sequence that is the one of the big set pieces of the film) His so-called offer to join forces with Spider-Man makes little sense and is one of the worst scenes in the film as you have two masked figures having a conversation on an obvious studio set that comes across as a scene from a toy commercial.
And that scene highlights the problem with the Green Goblin in this film. You don't hire an actor as good and as expressive as Willem Dafoe only to then cover him up completely in, what can only be described as, a Power Ranger suit so you can't see the performance. Just compare any scene where he's dressed as the Goblin to the scene where he talks to his alter ego in the mirror and you can see that prosthetic make up was the way to go with the design of the character. It's a huge mistake that robs most of the second half of the film of its drama as there's little plot bar the Goblin then going on a rampage against Spider-Man and his friends and family. The final battle amongst the ruins of an old building also has to be one of the most violent sequences I've seen in a family oriented film and is another huge shift of tone that just feels wrong when the first half of the film was so much fun.
The film only regains any sense of wonder in its closing moments when we follow Spider-Man swinging through the New York skyline and it's a real shame that just as the film begins to soar again, it ends.
A definite film of two halves and a great, missed opportunity to be a fantastic start to Spidey's cinematic adventures. You know you're in trouble when one of the best parts of the film is hearing the 60's Spider-Man Cartoon theme tune at the end of the closing credits 6/10