Garbage

Rating: Null/10 (31 August 2002)

I will not ask reviewers to 'hear me out' on this implying I owe the mob an explanation for refusing to conform to 'the Norm' (which society appears to uphold as the highest and most noble of all virtues). From an artistic point of view this movie is garbage having no merits. The gravest of all sins committed, even above that atrocious rethinking of the classic Green Goblin costume, is that the studios saw fit to assign David Keopp scripting chores on such a major motion picture. He is an unoriginal man likely to have a boring life since he sees fit NOT to imbue his work with any noticeable personal touch, rather he seems content merely to regurgitate what he's seen in other movies ( and not doubt the tenets of screenwriting as preached in Robert Mckee, and Syd Field books). The screenplay is crassly, so stupidly, so utterly banal, and shameless one wonders if in fact the writer (writers I should say...) were fully conscious of their actions , intending to pass this off as a malicious joke on the American public. You will find, thinkers, that there is NOT ONE single original idea in the whole of this expensive Xerox. One need not reach far back into the annals of film history to see from which works it pilfered thus I will not name them, having full confidence in your film memory. The direction is boring, as is Tobey Maguire in the lead. Kirsten Dunst registers, but only as a non-entity. Her character was sorely underwritten.
The cacophony of sound that Danny Elfman passes off as a score shows how poor the material is, since even the man who wrote the great score to Batman cannot work wonders without first being inspired. One more grave failing is perhaps the cornerstone of its appeal to the masses. Spiderman is an 'accessible' hero( unlike Superman who is perfect for ex.). The 'accessible' superhero is an awful concept since it DESTROYS all that is worthy in the hero by giving him flaws, the underlying message being one of reassurance to the average that they may continue about their way, complacent, unmotivated to strive for greatness, since even those men we laud as our champions share our same basic failings, and may be prone to caving into temptation at any given time. This is the anathema of nobility. Sadly, it's popularity has spread in our culture not like AIDS to which there have risen many pleas for a cure, but like a disease much liked in its giving both the great, and the small a common bond. To provide a balanced review, I will write that on the plus side, William Dafoe is quite good as Norman Osborn, and is the only one in the cast who plays his role, however lousy, with something approximating true conviction. It is he alone that raises this movie 'several rungs in hell' for me; it is the only thing about this movie in which I do not find much fault. At this point you may wonder, "What did you expect? Shakespeare"? Yes. We all should, as a collective body demand only the very best in order to receive it. Telling ourselves that we should settle for what we're given in order to not offend others, or simply shrugging our shoulders will lead only to our film industry's downward spiral( or rather continued downward spiral) allowing for mediocrities like this to arise like so many weeds, in place of say American Beauties, or Magnolias ( which are at the very at least have a view point dictated by their authors and not everyone else, a concept rendered beautiful by our society's protestations to even a single man declaring himself separate and of an unlike mind)...