A promising start that will soon get better

Rating: 9/10 (5 July 2003)

I saw Spider-Man on May 5, 2002 and I got to say that I was surprised that director Sam Raimi did a good job transiting a popular comic book to the big screen. Not since Batman or Superman has there been a movie about a great comic book hero. Spider-Man tells the story of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), a timid and shy student who is picked on and has feelings for Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) but doesn't have the confidence to tell her how much he loves her; until one day when Peter and his classmates go to the New York laboratory. That is where Peter is bitten by a radio-active spider which weakens him for a while and all of a sudden he has super-strength within himself. How our hero starts out as Spider-Man is from the comics with his Uncle Ben(Cliff Robertson) droping off Peter at the library, but instead he decides to go behind his uncle's back and goes to fight at the wrestling for money. After a robbery, Peter has no choice but to go after the suspect and that is where he starts out as Spider-Man.
Just like every movie there is a villain, and the bad guy is Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin(Willem Defoe) after an accident in the laboratory. Now Green Goblin wants to go after Spider-Man and hurt those along the way.
Here are the pros and cons.
Pros: Finally, Spider-Man gets to come to the big screen where Tobey Maguire does a wonderful job of playing the timid Peter Parker with those boyish looks. Kirsten Dunst is a marvel as the lady in distress where her chemistry with Maguire works as if they were meant to be together. Willem Dafoe is still creepy off his "Shadow of the Vampire" persona as the Goblin where he manages to ham up more scenes than Nicholson's Joker.
Cons: The first hour works fine with the human effects until the second hour where the special effects dominates of not caring for a plot or any of the other characters. Most of the action sequences from a far away shot looks fake as if there's no weight or dimension. Not even the supporting characters have much screen time where it just leaves Maguire and Dafoe.
Overall, a pretty decent film. Spider-Man proves to be a worthy comic book movie for fans of the books or the hero.
The film also stars James Franco as Harry Osborn, Rosemary Harris as Aunt May, and J.K. Simmons as J.J. Jameson.