This year’s big comic book film has finally arrived. With these types of films, there are usually two types of film-goers. There are the dyed-in-the-wool comic fans who will never be happy because of something that’s not exactly as they envisioned it. Then there’s the rest of us, who go to see an action/adventure film with funky costumes.
Spider-Man tells the story of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), a geeky high school student, who is bitten by a genetically altered spider during a class field trip. The spider’s DNA mixes with his and, when he awakens the next day, he finds he’s gotten some interesting powers, a much improved physique and no longer needs his glasses. Of course, a superhero wouldn’t be too interesting without a villain to fight. Spider-Man gives us The Green Goblin, who is created when billionaire Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) ingests some of his company’s military performance enhancers before they’re ready for use. They have a pretty bad effect on him, making him murderously violent and super strong. Since Osborn’s company manufactured military hardware, The Green Goblin also has access to some very interesting weapons.
With any super-hero film that contains the origins of the hero, the filmmaker must explain how the hero comes to terms with his alter-ego. Usually, that’s where superhero movies unravel — becoming too bogged down by explaining every little detail or glossing over everything in an effort to get to the meat. Spider-Man walks a very fine line between glossing over everything and spending a little too much time on some aspects of the character. Director Sam Raimi (Evil Dead 2) lingers just long enough on the character development to satisfy those who complain these movies are all about special effects. Peter Parker does have some issues to deal with and those are given a proper amount of attention. Sometimes, the amount of time that’s passed between scenes isn’t clear and it initially appears that days have passed instead of months, but that’s a small problem. Other than that, the film’s pacing and mixture of character-oriented scenes with action scenes is pretty good. A little more action wouldn’t have hurt, but what’s here is very well done and exciting.
Special effects are important to a superhero. Spider-Man has some pretty nifty material to work with. Spider-Man can climb walls, swing from webs, shoot webbing from his wrists and jump with incredible agility. The film doesn’t make the action look too cartoony. When The Green Goblin throws Spider-Man through a wall, it certainly doesn’t look like Spidey’s going to shrug it off easily. Some of the computer generated effects aren’t too convincing at times, but the majority of the effects work is wonderfully done. The Spider-Man costume is the best comic book costume to ever hit the big screen. It’s beautifully done and 100% faithful to the original.
The love story — and every superhero film has one it seems — isn’t too bad. Peter Parker is in love with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) and can’t seem to get her attention. However, Spider-Man seems to have no problem doing just that. Without getting into too many details, this aspect of the film isn’t particularly strong. It’s not bad, just a little awkward.
If there’s anything wrong with Spider-Man, it’s the lack of motivation on The Green Goblin’s part. He doesn’t really have a grand plan that fuels his existence. His feud with Spider-Man is a little bit of a stretch, but this isn’t a huge problem just a minor flaw.
Spider-Man is one of the best superhero movies ever made. Unfortunately, it still misses on a few key aspects (villain’s motivation, a weak love story) and that keeps it from getting my top score. Still, Spider-Man is highly entertaining and an excellent summer movie.
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
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