Great visual adaptation, but the spirit is lost..

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2002)

This movie is probably the BEST visual adaptation of a comic hero. No movie before has every captured a comic hero as closely (from a visual stand point) as this movie has captured Spiderman.
The moment Spidey sets out slinging his webs and swinging from building to building, you will get flashbacks from the comics you read when you were young. The interaction between the computer generated spidey, the special effects and the Spiderman played by Tobey is pretty slick.

Still, I think the movie failed to capture Spiderman's most important attribute, which is not his web slinging or wall crawling or heightened senses.. It's actually his sense of humour.
The attribute that set Spiderman apart from all comic hero's was his constant sarcasm.. Those little bubbles above his head where he would make fun of himself after a bad landing or make fun of Dr.Doom after something he says. This whole aspect of Spidey's character is totally lost in the movie and that is a big blow to any adaptation of Spiderman's comics.
The script was not the work of legends, there are many cheesy parts in the movie (especially a whole scene which is totally uncalled for where Spidey saves Marie-Jane from rapists).
Acting is done rather well in the movie, Tobey does a great job as the nerd, Dunst is not needed for her role, it is greatly beneath her acting skills and she is too nice to be MJ, but she does pretty well and then there is Willem Dafoe whom I thought was awesome.