Watch it just for J. Jonah Jameson!

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 2002)

I am constantly waiting for someone to screw up a 'comic-book into film' movie but Spider-man isn't that film. By all accounts, Spider-man carries on this recent trend without cheapening the story.
Like most of the recent comic-come-movie efforts the director has obviously heavily resisted the urge to go O.T.T., with the effect of making the film slightly reek of restraint. Spider-man isn't as good as X-Men. There are two possible reasons for this. The first would be that there was greater wealth of characters in X-Men. Spider-man is basically Peter Parker/Spiderman (Tobey Maguire) versus Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin (Willem Defoe). Most of the other characters are pretty forgettable, with the notable exception of J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. In contrast, X-Men had all the old comic-book favourites: Wolverine, Cyclops, Magneto, Storm, Sabretooth and Professor X.
The second possibility might be the quality of the actors (warning! Prepare for patriotic British rant!). X-Men has the superior quality of that great British acting knight, Sir Ian McKellen (Magneto), and the classically trained Shakespearian officer of the Order of the British Empire, Mr. Patrick Stewart (Xavier), the talented Mr. Ray Park (Toad) and the lovely Miss Anna Pacquin (Rogue). There was also our Australian cousin, Mr. Jackman (Wolverine) and the beautiful Halle Berry (Storm).

Spider-man had very little big-name talent (none of them British, I hasten to add). Pretty much anyone could have been Spider-man but Tobey Maguire was perfect as Peter Parker and Kirsten Dunst was an excellent up-and-coming choice for Spiderman's love-interest, Mary Jane Watson. J.K. Simmons, the actor who played Parker's curmudgeonly editor-employer, J. Jonah Jameson, was simply brilliant, hilarious! Now, Mr. Willem Defoe... he is not an actor for whom I have ever had any particular affection and this opinion was cemented by his performance in the villain in Speed 2: Cruise Control (a truly awful film!). However, Defoe performs quite adequately as the desperate entrepreneur, Norman Osborn, who, through an excellently done sequence of schizophrenic split-personality sequences, eventually becomes Spiderman's antithesis, The Green Goblin. Having seen Spider-man, I cannot imagine anyone else playing the role of the Goblin, due to Defoe's uniquely structured face, although the inanimate mask he wears is annoying at first because the gaping jaws of the Goblin never move, even when he's in full flow, and later it's annoying because, thanks to close-ups, you can see Defoe's mouth talking through the blackout of the mouth.
In terms of villains Defoe's Goblin is certainly no match for Sir Ian's Magneto. A friend of mine suggested that Jack Nicholson would have been better but I would maintain that Nicholson will always be The Joker! Defoe performed adequately considering the mighty foot-steps he's following (I certainly wouldn't want to be up against Nicholson or McKellen if talent was being measured).
In conclusion, the storyline is good and not too unbelieveable, although it seemed somewhat unambitious given the media hype. The much raved about special effects were good for the most part but for some lousy editing when Maguire gets replaced by a CGI Spiderman climbing up a wall. I can't help thinking that the camera being turned on it's side to film Adam West's Batman walking "up" a wall looked more real. Some have criticised the director's attempt to inject humour into the story but I found most of the jokes quite funny (i.e., Spiderman's early career as an amateur wrestler). However, the script let's them down and I expected better banter between Spiderman and the Goblin (more of the kind of great one-liners we got from Magneto and Joker). There was also the increasingly obligatory product-placement (kudos to Carlsberg) but I have forgiven them because they put Kirsten Dunst in a wet T-shirt!
To be perfectly honest, it's worth seeing just for that and also the few scenes with Simmons (Jameson) in. It's good fun to watch and most of the criticisms (in Britain anyway) that it's too violent are akin to the criticisms that Harry Potter promotes the occult! Thank God comic-book films aren't going down the same ruinous road as the computer-game films (i.e., Lara Croft, Street Fighter, Mortal Combat, etc.), except for some idiot giving the Batman films to Joel Schumacher! However, remaining cynical, I await Ben Affleck as the DareDevil and the Incredible Hulk films with great interest.
6.5/10