On its own, a decent movie...with the Spider-Man name attached...not so decent

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2003)

I have been a huge fan of Spider-Man for as long as I can remember. When I first heard there were plans for a movie, I knew it was going to be amazing. Well, I'm amazed at the fact that I was wrong.
I don't know what in particular screwed this up so badly. I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's the fact that I expected this movie to truly amaze me, and my expectations were a little to high.
Five years ago, this movie would've amazed me. That is, it would've amazed me because I didn't recognize bad movies. Five years ago I didn't realize how truly bad Batman & Robin was. I guess this movie was made for kids, but they should've thought about the teens and adults who grew up with Spidey and thought that maybe he grew up too.
How could it have been better? Here are just a few suggestions:

1) Don't change the bloody costumes or powers- the Green Goblin was NOT supposed to make me laugh, but it did. And what was the point of making web-shooting an integrated power instead of an invention?? If it came with the powers, realistically, it would come out of Peter's arse.
2) Make the movie darker. It's too happy; Spider-Man is supposed to be a little darker inside. There was way too little thought about Uncle Ben's famous words: "With great power comes great responsibility". Spidey is supposed to be dwelling on this philosophy waaay more.
3) It's a simple boy-meets-girl-and-falls-in-love-then-gets-superpowers plot, which even in the comics demonstrated little depth. I just thought maybe they could explore his uniquely teen mentality more, get into Peter's psychology. After all, his mind, flaws and truely human frailty is what attracted most of his fans.
Overall, the film just didn't go deep enough. But this is coming from a person who expects movies of this caliber to be really, really good. Overall, this is an okay movie to watch with pizza and some friends, and that's about it. I must admit, it's interesting to finally see Spidey in live action, and it'll be interesting to see Doc Oc and the Lizard on film (and possible Venom or Carnage in the third movie, which I'm sure they'll make). I give Spider-Man a 6 or 7 out of 10.
Hopefully they'll remake the Spidey movie in 20 years...I'll make it a personal goal to live to see a Spider-Man movie adaptation I truly love.