It's got its web on me.

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2008)

My Take: A challenging comic-book summer blockbuster with all the thrills you have come to expect, and more.
There's much buzz about this movie before it was released, and even if I unfortunately missed the film in its theatrical release, I managed to catch up. SPIDER-MAN is the ideal summer blockbuster, and the fact that this film was a highly-praised summer attraction is understandable. Packed with state-of-the-art special effects creations that parade in front of the screen like magic, but also powered by a great story and a sharp focus on characters, SPIDER-MAN is a web of gold.
Tobey Maguire is ideally cast as Peter Parker who, after being bit by the radioactive spider, is turned from ultimate nerd into the ultimate superhero of the title, but you all know that. But the film makes everything else interesting for the audience. Instead of being just your fairly typical summer event picture, living it up with special effects alone, this one actually has a story to boot, and interesting characters ranging from Parker, his family and the villain, Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), who turns into the evil Green Goblin. Director Sam Raimi doesn't dumb this one down as a visually exhilarating and incompetently plot-less summer picture. What SPIDER-MAN turns up to be is a terrific roller-coaster ride of an adventure, which gives audiences have much to think about.
Although the sum of the parts are often uneven, SPIDER-MAN is still a wild ride of a summer movie that'll knock your socks off. And yes, it does live up to its hype.
Rating: **** out of 5.