OK, but oddly paced comic adaptation

Rating: Null/10 (13 June 2002)

While I enjoyed much of SPIDERMAN, I had the curious feeling that this film was very much the result of dozens of drafts and rewrites. The opening and closing "bookends" seem to inhabit one universe, while the middle of the film is quite another. Are these teenagers? Young adults? If they are so smart/wealthly why don't they go on to college? How much time passes during the running time? Is Spiderman a science whiz or just a hobbyist photographer? Besides one newspaper's headlines, why would all of NYC suddenly turn on Spiderman despite his heroics? All of these questions kept popping into my head, and the best reason I could give for most of them, is that it's largely a result of all the years of "development" (more accurately "devolve-ment") the film went thru from Menachem Golan to James Cameron to David Koepp/Sam Raimi (with numerous other stops in between). And, I give Stan Lee a LOT more credit than believing he envisioned SPIDER-MAN as such an obvious ripoff of the Mario Puzo/Richard Donner/Salkind SUPERMAN film(s). Some of the scenes border on outright theft. The cast is fine (though two fine actors Cliff Roberston and Rosemary Harris seem lost at times under Raimi's unsure direction). One final question, if you hire such an enjoyable ham as Willem Dafoe for your villain, why would you hide him under a helmet for much of the film?! (Even Stan Lee says this was a mistake). The big mano-a-mano confrontation between Spidey & Dafoe degenerates into a battle between two stunt men (Maguire's double is at least 25 lbs. heavier) with dueling voice-overs of your lead actors.