I am completely surprised with the fact that I did not enjoy this film.

Rating: Null/10 (12 May 2002)

I am completely surprised with the fact that I did not enjoy this film. Did I hate it? No, although it does reuse, recycle and remix key plot points and storylines from the super-hero films that precede it. Spider-man never fully takes off, and rather is content on being a fluff introduction to its title hero, filled with some campy style, dead-end dialogue, and matinee drama.
The film does stay true to most of the origin of Spider-man from the original Stan Lee comic (in a blink and you'll miss cameo). Peter Parker, a teenager that is picked on by his classmates and who has in fact been in love with his next door neighbor Mary-Jane for the longest time, is suddenly endowed with spider-like powers as a result of being bitten by a radioactive spider while on a class field trip. As he discovers the powers, his best friend Harry's dad, Norman Osborn, a brilliant scientist who's experimental project to create a new weapon for the army is in financial trouble and thus decides to test it out on himself, but in result becomes the villain dubbed as Green Goblin.
Tobey Maguire is a nice choice for Peter Parker, as are most of the casting choices for the film. By far the most entertaining role belonged to J.K. Simmons who plays the cigar-smoking J. Jonah Jameson from the Daily Bugle, a paper which Peter Parker sells photos of Spider-man to. Those scenes made me smile and remember some moments from the early cartoon. In fact Sam Raimi kindly inserts nostalgic elements from the early 'toons and comics throughout the movie, perhaps to satisfy the purist of Spidey fans. Now I don't know about you, but I would much rather watch a great Spider-man story told on screen rather then a few live-action recreations. In that respect the script had a lot to do with why this film just didn't deliver as well as it could.
I always wonder why it is in super-hero movies that the unstoppable villain is always created at the same time as the all mighty hero. Now I understand that the film may need a villain otherwise this just leaves Spider-Man discovering his powers the whole movie while fighting `regular' criminals (then again would that have been such a bad thing? This is a movie about Spider-man). I think about movies like `Unbreakable', `Batman' and even `Batman Returns', where the villains are handled much better in the storyline, and I feel as though they have a reason to be there, more than just to be part of the movie.
This is big budget pop-corn film not unlike any you've seen before. It drags to make up for what should be story-telling and the special effects come up short many times throughout, and that's unbelievable when you figure they had a 120 million dollar budget for this thing. I just didn't see the value on screen. They should have cut some of those out and made room for more character development, after all they do set up a sort of love triangle between Peter, Harry and Mary-Jane. I would have loved to actually feel some tension in those scenes instead of just having them involved because the script called for it.
If by now your thinking this thing is filled with plot-holes, then your right! And please don't say that it's just a comic film and that it's ok. Sure, some of the hero stuff you just have to let slide, but I know that this story could have been told much better than it was, but this is not why I gave it 2 out of 4 stars. I actually found myself getting annoyed when scenes between characters we're cut short by some lame explosion and/or action sequence. Enough already! I want to know more about these people. Willem Dafoe actually managed to have a great scene, where he argues in front of the mirror with his Goblin counterpart. Well done, but scenes like this we're way to few and far between.
The ending of this movie, especially the battle scene between Spider-man and Green Goblin, is near laughable and goes by so quickly it makes you wonder what we'd been building up to exactly. I would love to openly say the problems and plot holes they leave at the end, but as always I attempt to keep my reviews spoiler free. Just know that I was in complete shock by the behaviors of these characters in reaction to each other based on the way they'd been behaving the whole time. And Green Goblin's dialogue is pure recycled garbage villain dialogue from a million other films before. Sheesh!
Basically there is some nostalgia involved when seeing a comic hero I read, drew, and role played in my early years growing up, finally make it onto the big screen. It's larger than life itself. The medium of film has perfectly evolved to make a character like Spider-man shine, and knowing that adds to the disappointment of watching the end result. This could have been an instant classic, but here and now it is happy with simply being the flavor of the month.
Extra Note: I actually liked the fact that they made the webbing come out of Spider-man's wrists, seemed much more logical than him creating those incredible web-shooters and fluid like in the original comic. But I wonder; since they filled this film with so much ridiculous stuff, why not just leave them in. They could have been used to put him in all kinds of other dangerous situations, like he could be in a situation where he runs out of webbing, so on. Ah I can go on forever, but this isn't relevant to the film.