simply adequate when it should have been great (No spoilers)

Rating: 5/10 (4 May 2002)

The first thirty minutes had me smiling, but after the initial setup the movie falls apart and feels very episodic. Why? Because the villain had no plan to carry off, so the hero had no goal to reach. The climax was lame as well -- not enough at stake. The production design was cool, but the lighting overall was flat: it looked like a TV movie. And what was up with all that _graininess_ during some of the CGI-heavy sequences? Were they re-rendering frames up until the last minute?
I have other gripes as well, but the overall crime here is that what should have been a great movie turned out to be simply mediocre. The Spiderman I know and love still lives in the 1967 animated TV series. Tobey Maguire, however, was well cast as Peter Parker -- he inhabited the role well as he usually does (rent WONDER BOYS for another great performance of his). And Kirsten Dunst has grown up to be a real hottie.