It broke records, or so I'm told. It was "the shit" (N. Kolos 05-09-02), or so I hear. Four stars, two thumbs up, if I see one movie this summer, this should be it.

Fair enough.

I bought in to the hype. It was a particularly dismal day, Friday, May 10th. I needed something to lift my spirits. Lo and behold, some friends wanted to go see Spider-Man! Not being one to turn down an offer like that, I promptly agreed to go, and we were off. We stopped by a local Burger King first. I got two cheeseburgers--which, incidentally, costed me less money than a single double-cheeseburger would have. Interesting. It was a good meal, I suppose. But I digress; this isn't a restaraunt review.

On to the movie!

Spider-Man opens with--how does it open? I forgot. But it was good, I think. Maybe I'm wrong. In any case, eventually we meet Peter Parker, quite possibly the nerdiest person in New York. He says something about wishing he was a fat guy who spills chocolate on his shirt, I think. Anyway, this guy epitomizes "nerdy." He takes pictures of spiders and wears glasses. I mean, just the glasses give it away! But then, in a case of serendipity, he gets bitten by a spider (it never says it's a radioactive spider, but it's implied), and life is never the same again--at least, not for the rest of the movie.

At this time, we meet this other guy, who's, like, rich and kind of creepy looking. But he faces bankruptcy and decides to perform weird tests on himself for money or something. Then he gets angry about something, I forgot what, and attacks some other guy who's not really important. This guy eventually turns in to--I don't know, I thought he was the Hobgoblin, but I could have sworn that they said Green Goblin in the movie. Oh well.

At this point, I decided that I should take a trip to the lavatory, so I don't know what happened, but apparently the scene went back to our protagonist. When I returned from the bathroom (maybe the cleanest public bathroom I've ever seen--I'd pay the price of admission for the movie just to use that urinal again!) Peter Parker was RIPPED like STALONE and his vision was, like, perfect. Then he goes to school and shoots web at someone and gets creeped out, then goes into a The Matrix sort of thing. I was kind of disappointed when he didn't note that his spider senses were tingling, but again, it was implied.

Then some stuff happens and he becomes a professional wrestler and inadvertantly lets his uncle get killed by a wandering marauder. Let me tell you: this is the worst death scene ever. I mean, when Captain Kirk (on a side note, I just misspelled that "Captain Jerk" and thought it was funny) died in Star Trek: Generations or whichever one it was, it was pretty bad, but Uncle Ben didn't even say anything clever before he died! No "it was fun" or "remember who you are" or anything! But, Peter Parker uses this as an excuse to run around in tight clothes. (Another side note: one minute he's in a t-shirt with a spider drawn on it in magic marker, and the next he's got the full-fledged hero suit. I want to know where it came from!)

From there on, it was your average evil supervillain tries to destroy New York City while vigilante superhero balances keeping a secret identity and saving the girl he loves story. But it doesn't stop there! Once we find out that the Hobgoblin or whatever his name is is really Peter Parker's best friend's father, comic mischeif ensues! And, it is good!

All in all, Spider-Man was a decent movie. As a movie, I'd give it six thumbs up out of ten--but it was fun to watch, so I'd give it an overall 7.5 thumbs up out of ten. The bottom line is, see the movie. I'll bet it's better than Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the [Stupid] Clones will be.

Don't like it? Complain!

Or contact me:
E-Mail: [email protected]