Peter Parker is your average teenager, an aspiring photojournalist who is in love with the girl next door and regularly misses the bus to school. One day on a school trip to a science lab, he is bitten by a genetically modified spider and imbued with super powers that turn him into the Spider-Man we all know so well.
With X-Men reviving the commercial viability of superhero films, it wasn�t long before many a pulp peacekeeper had his big screen rights snapped up and rushed into production. Time seemed ripe for the webslinger to make his big screen debut and confidence was high that he could even take on Episode II in the opening summer box-office bout. Sam Raimi directs, hoping to recapture some of his early cinematic energy and two young starlets who have been waiting in the wings for some time, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst take the opportunity to push for greater things.
And Spider-Man doesn�t disappoint, shunning the more po-faced approach of Singer�s X-Men or Burton�s Batman, while also steering clear of the ridiculousness Schumacher brought to the Caped Crusader. So the overall feel is genuinely evocative of a comic book, with serious moments (especially an enjoyable but perhaps unwisely dark final confrontation) alongside light comedy with Parker trying to shoot webs with some control or straight-faced delivery of lines such as �Look, it�s Spider-Man� from Woman Pointing Agog At Sky.
The baddy is Willem Defoe as The Green Goblin, with a new military supersuit disguising scientist Norman Osborn rather than the comic�s strangely realistic outfit.
Defoe has a great time snarling and arching eyebrows in an appropriately campy fashion, but retaining genuine menace and lunacy. Maguire is believable as the pleasant, unassuming Parker and Dunst plays the love interest MJ well, even if there isn�t really that much expected of her. The only real complaint is the over reliance on the CG Spider-Man, which is very impressive but is still blatant and left me feeling slightly cheated that we didn�t see the real Spidey in action more. But that�s a small niggle in an otherwise perfectly pitched superhero movie. |
