I've been reading Spider-Man comic books all my life and in my mind there could never
be a perfect Spider-Man movie. This film comes close.
The movie does most things right. It has good, solid
casting. The only actor that I felt wasn't up to the
task was James Franco.(Harry Osborn) The only purpose in casting this guy was "eye-candy" for the ladies. He was blessed with the looks of James Dean, but that does NOT make him an actor. The story was fairly solid. This was an origin story that tells us basically who our hero is and where he comes from, so that in the inevitable sequels we can move on to deeper plots without all the character development.
One thing we get right away is that Peter Parker is
not your typical hero. He's a nerdy guy who can't get his secret crush Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst)to notice him and worries about helping out his elderly aunt and uncle. The main point is that you have to care about the man beneath the mask so that when the action starts to take place you are rooting for him all the way. The director (Sam Raimi)understands this concept perfectly. He sticks mostly to the established (and sacred) lore of this highly-popular comic book do-gooder and his 40 years of adventures in the medium. I said "mostly" because in the comic book
when the spider bites Peter he does NOT gain the ability to create his own webs. Peter Parker invents a pair of "web shooters" and wears them on both of his wrists. Just how important is that overall????
VERY Peter is BOTH a science whiz and an INVENTOR.
I'd much rather they cut out a few dialogue scenes
between him and Mary Jane than to leave out an important aspect of Peter's character. I think its very easy to get the fact that Peter loves M.J. without some of the cheesy (some were cheesy) love lines. That being said I'm glad Mr. Raimi did pay
vast attention to one major important detail: THE
COSTUME. It's been said that the clothes make the man, well a Superhero's costume is his calling card. At age 40 Spiderman has never looked better! There
are some in Hollywood (Bryan Singer)who think that
superhero's needed to be treated more "realistic" or
that tight fitting, bright colored costumes might look "silly" or too "campy"! No one ever laughed
at Christopher Reeve and Spider-Man is just breaking all kinds of box office records!!I hope the appropriate people are standing up and taking notice? I think that the special effects were very convincing, but a little overused. I wanted to see more scenes where real stunt men in costumes were doing real stunts/fights and a little less C.G.I. What I wanted to see was one good LONG scene where we have Spider-Man hitching a ride on the back of the Green Goblin's glider and he's dodging pumpkin bombs during a real nice ariel battle. The final battle scene needed to be much longer too!! I know I'm getting picky,but the reason is just that this film
comes so close to perfection and just barely misses
its mark. This film is really a drama which just happens to be about a guy who's given great power. That's the best compliment I can give. It also has romance,(nice job Tobey & Kirsten)action and even comedy.It's the best time I had at the movies all summer and even my girlfriend liked it. (except the ending) I award this film with a B+.
