Spiderman Fails to Enchant

Rating: Null/10 (4 May 2002)

Due to legal battles over copyright ownership, Marvel's bankruptcy, and other issues, it seemed like my dream movie would never get me. After hoping and waiting for more than a decade, Columbia Pictures finally resolved the legal issues and announced that they were going to bring the beloved `Spiderman' to the big screen. Usually I don't get too excited over new movie projects, but this one I really got into the hype. The trailers ran the gambit from being terrible to awesome with each new version.
It seemed to have all the elements in place to be a really good, if not great superhero movie. So why, oh why, didn't I like it? What went wrong?
I can't remember the last time I left a theater feeling as let down and disappointed in a film as I was in this. I was pretty speechless when folks asked me what I thought, I couldn't quite verbalize why I didn't like it or how I felt. Now after thinking about it for a few days, I now know why.
Let me say `Spiderman' wasn't a `bad' movie. But it certainly wasn't great or even above average; it was a perfectly `pedestrian', run of the mil ho-hum movie, that didn't have a single moment in it that makes you go `wow'! Most of the movie's "wow" moments are in the trailers, which have been shown hundreds of times. It plays it safe and doesn't take any chances to be great or push any boundaries, which is what great movies do and what `Spiderman' should have aspired to do.
For those who have lived under a rock and don't know, `Spiderman' is based on the beloved Marvel Character created four decades ago by the `infamous' and creative genius Stan Lee and Marvel Character designer Steve Ditko.
`Spiderman' tells the story of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), a teenager who was raised by his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) and Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson). He's an awkward kid, who typifies the standard nerd `cliché', he's poor, he's bullied by the school jock, Flash Thompson (Joe Manganiello), ignored by the girl of his dreams, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), and are best friends with the local rich kid, Harry Osborn (James Franco), whom he befriended during tutoring sessions.
During a class school trip to a hi-tech genetics research facility, Peter is bitten by a radioactive spider and his life suddenly changes. He gains all the `proportional' abilities of a spider; which includes superhuman strength, the ability to spin webs, superhuman reflexes, the ability to cling to any surface, and a nifty thing known as `spider senses'  which warns our hero of impending danger. Can someone answer a question for me? If spiders have all of these abilities why are they so damn slow and easy to kill?
At first Peter doesn't realize what is happening to him until he finds himself involved in yet another fight with Flash. When he is able to effortlessly dodge all of Flash's punches and knock him out with one punch, he's just as surprised as everyone else. Imbued with excitement over his newfound powers he wants to turn use his `gift' to make money by becoming a wrestler. After being stiffed by the wrestler promoter, (Lying wrestling promoters? I'm shocked! Shocked!), he let's a thief who robbed the promoter escape.
Later that night, that very same thief shoots and kills his beloved Uncle Ben. In anguish Peter remembers something his uncle told him `With great powers, come great responsibility.' At that moment he vows to help the helpless and `blah, blah, blah'
While all of this is going on, Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), Harry's domineering and `distant' industrialist father is having some "issues" at work, he's about to lose a major military contract to a rival company if they cannot deliver a `super-soldier' serum to the government in a few days. His chief scientist tells them that in all their lab tests, the subject's where genetically enhanced to display superhuman strength, hearing, etc.but the side effect is, all the mice went insane (How do you know a mouse is insane?) and displayed a marked increase in aggressive behavior. Well of course, never having watched an evil scientist movie, and being desperate, Norman decides to test the serum on himself with the standard results. The experiment goes bad and he becomes an insane madman known as the Green Goblin (more on this later).
The movie does a pretty good job of telling Spiderman's origin, although it should have and could have done it in a lot less time than the 20 or 30 minutes it takes. It bogs the movie down. The `back story' seemed empty and stilted. Maguire's acting was ok, but he didn't quite have the raw star power or presence that was needed to anchor this film. But then, in the comic book (which I collected for 10 years) the Peter Parker `character' was never really all that interesting. He was only interesting because he was Spiderman. He used Spiderman to show an alternate side of himself - a confident, `fun loving' superhero, who would have a ton of zingers and funny quips that would drive the bad guys crazy. The character and personality of Spiderman was totally lost in this film. This Spiderman was more like `Batman', than the comic book Spiderman.
Kirsten Dunst was fabulous as Mary Jane Watson and the chemistry between the two were good as well. Unfortantely the rest of the cast is nowhere near as good as Dunst and Maguire are, with the notable exception of J.K. Simmons dead on `impersonation' of the cigar chomping gruff, blowhard, J. Jonah Jameson  publisher of `The Daily Bugle'. Who uses his newspaper as a soap box to trash and discredit `Spiderman'.
What was director Sam Raimi thinking when he horribly miscast Joe Manganiello as Flash Thompson, but his worst sin was James Franco as Harry Osborn. Franco looked as if he ate bad cabbage, or tasted sour milk and that was the only expression that he displayed throughout the entire film. Why was he picked? Was it his resemblance to Harry Osborne?
On paper, Willem Dafoe was perfectly cast as `The Green Goblin'. But there is but so much you can do with a villain who was never that great to begin with. The Green Goblin was a ridiculous villain in the comic book, and he's even more so on the big screen. The goblin suit, had to be the worst, cheesiest looking monstrosity that I've ever seen on a big screen. It supposed to inspire fear, a sense of danger, instead it inspired fits of hysterical laughter whenever the goblin put in an appearance. It looked klunky, fake, and just totally ridiculous.
As for the rest of the special effects, the night time sequences look fantastic, and the up close stunt work look fabulous and realistic, unfortunately the CGI in the movie looked really fake, especially the web swinging shots, which were plentiful, and some of the more `far away' shots. The heavy reliance on CGI is what robs Spiderman of his character, his humanity, and ultimately makes the film feel `hollow' and dare I say `cheap'.
Danny Elfman's music score was tame, borring, and non-inspiring. It was the same recycled, derivitive, crap that he's done every since he did the excellent score for Batman.
While watching `Spiderman' I kept feeling like I was watching the old `Spiderman' series from the 70s, just blown up to the big screen, and I kept thinking how cool this would be on television. Something you should never be thinking during a summer blockbuster, especially a superhero film. `Spiderman' is the perfect cookie cutter, carefully `packaged' corporate product.