Comically cool introduction to the Spider Man legend.

Rating: 9/10 (13 June 2020)

The appeal of the best sequences in the Superman and Batman movies is that they lend weight and importance to comic-book images. Within the ground rules set by each movie, they even have plausibility. As a reader of the Spider Man comics, I admired the vertiginous frames showing Spider Man dangling from terrifying heights. He had the powers of a spider and the instincts of a human being.
Spider-Man takes most of its cues from 1978's Superman: The Movie. Peter Parker's journey from unassuming geek to high-flying hero mimics the Man of Steel's in story and tone. The colorful comic spirit of Richard Donner's gleefully exciting original is all here, just Marvel fiend. Raimi and screenwriter David Koepp approach Spider-Man's origin with reverence for Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original story. Koepp's script hits all the beats you'd expect (Spider bite, wrestling match, great power, and all that), but it also includes, unexpectedly, an intelligent, eloquent emotional foundation. Raimi and Koepp understand who Peter Parker is, and how his transformation into Spider-Man can metaphorically parallel his development as a character. In being confronted by new and strange spider powers, Peter is also confronted by the responsibilities of manhood. Koepp takes Stan Lee's best idea (That Peter Parker should grapple equally between super villains and everyday problems), and pushes it to its logical max.
Peter's infatuation with girl next door, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) is given equal importance to his struggle with Norman Osborne's manic alter ego, the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). The result is pretty well timeless. The quintessential Spider-Man story. A coming of age tale that gracefully weaves together every important aspect of the wall-crawler's myth into a grand concoction of pure Spider-Man.
Enhancing the story is one of the great casting jobs in motion picture history. First and foremost is Tobey Maguire, who was a revelation as Peter Parker/ Spider-Man. Like Christopher Reeve before him, Maguire completely defines the role. His Parker is a good kid; shy, dorky, and believably square. He radiates with innocence and later, teenage anxiety. As Spider-Man, he's delightfully charismatic. Lively, but never annoyingly brash in the way other Spideys have been. In the costume or not, every subsequent Spidey will live in his shadow. Maguire's casting was a stroke of genius, but it was no anomaly. Kirsten Dunst is a luminous Mary Jane, and she and Peter's romance sparkles with charm. Willem Dafoe relishes his Green Goblin role, with a voice and presence that burn with comic book intensity. Peter Parker was crucial in the evolution of Marvel comics because he was fallible and had recognizable human traits. He was a nerd, a loner, socially inept, insecure, a poor kid being raised by relatives. Ma Guire gets all of that just right, and I enjoyed the way Durnst is able to modulate her gradually increasing interest in this loser who begins to seem attractive to her.
I also liked the complexity of the villain, who in his Dr. Jekyll manifestation is brilliant tycoon Norman Osborn and in his Mr. Hyde persona is a cackling psychopath. Osborn's son Harry is a rich kid, embarrassed by his dad's wealth, who is Peter's best and only friend, and Norman is affectionate toward Peter even while their alter egos are deadly enemies. That works, and there's an effective scene where Osborn has a conversation with his invisible dark side. The origin story is well told, and the characters will not disappoint anyone who values the original comic books.
But Spider-Man belongs to Sam Raimi. A Spider-Man super fan since childhood, Raimi was destined to bring the web slinger to life. The offbeat sense of violent fun and jubilant cinematic showmanship that made Evil Dead and Darkman so entertaining is precisely what was needed to bring Spider-Man's New York to dazzling light. And what a creation Raimi's Spider-Verse is! The tone, with a precarious balance of larger-than-life action and textured character moments, never wavers once. Raimi crafts in Spider-Man, a New York where the archetypal comic book mainstays: the cackling villains, the wise-cracking heroes, and the pedestrians who shout to the skies "Look, it's Spider-Man!", fit just as well as the richly drawn human characters. Raimi and the creative team behind the film's production design deserve the highest of praises. There is nothing else that combines style and realism to such astonishing effect. It's as if forty years of comics have been distilled into a real world somewhere alongside our own.
Spider-Man showcases Sam Raimi at his exuberant best. Every frame of this movie is bursting with life. Whether it's the often gripping action scenes or the carefully crafted soap operatic drama, Spider-Man is an enthusiastic piece of crowd-pleasing entertainment, a passionate celebration of the Spider-Man Myth, and above all, a work of unparalleled quality. Blockbusters, especially superhero movies, with their all but guaranteed profits, can often breed lazy film making. Sam Raimi and company fly in the face of that conceit. The filmmakers have taken the time to really craft this film. Wrapped up in all the soaring spectacle is something real; An enchanting love story, a poignant morality tale about becoming the man you will be for the rest of your life.
That movie starts the string of the spider man that I'm grown with and raise the bar really high for the next super hero movie which comes soon after it. This part is really good synthesized. I can tell much more good thing about the movie but you can make them on your own.