Spider-man (2002)

I don't like superhero movies. I was never into comic books. I'm not a big fan of big-budget Hollywood action flicks. Imagine my surprise when Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" turned out to be okay.

As many may know, the story involves your friendly neighborhood social retard, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire). Peter is in love with the girl next-door, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). While taking pictures of her at what I believe is an arachnid experiment lab (school field trip), Peter is bitten by a radioactive spider. After a good night's sleep, Peter realizes that this bite has caused some strange things to happen to him: he no longer needs his glasses, he has developed a very muscular body structure, he has unfathomably quick reflexes, and he seems to be able to emit spider webs from the veins in his wrists (there is a funny scene where he tries a number of ways to get the web to go). He is now Spider-man.

Around the same time as all this happens, Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), father to Peter's best friend, Harry (James Franco), decides to use himself as a guinea pig for a performance enhancer that he has created. This drug enhances his performance a bit too much, ultimately turning him into an evil green monster known as the Green Goblin. However, the drug has effects which give Norman, the man, no recollection of his actions under the being of the Green Goblin. And so Norman doesn't realize until he converses with his other half in the mirror that he is, indeed, the Green Goblin. It is gradually that Norman finds out that Peter, who is like a son to him, is, indeed, Spider-man.

During the course of the film, the Goblin creates disasterous situations in the city, and Spider-man is then forced to save the day. I was convinced by most of these scenes. The majority of the special effects are well-done, making scenes seem less like the brainless rubbish in other Hollywood action films.

Of course, some scenes are better than others. There is one scene where the Goblin has captured Mary Jane and a cable car full of schoolchildren, and gives Spider-man the choice of which he wants to save. Of course, he tries to save both, which results in a scene that is laughably unconvincing. I think the film could have done without that scene because, in retrospect, it didn't do much for the plot.

I liked a lot of the non-action sequences in "Spider-man" as well (anyone who knows me knows that I can't deal with a film that has impressive technical credits, but no hint of a sceenplay). There is some great dialogue to be found, a lot of which comes from newspaper magnate J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), who has lines like "Slander is spoken; in print its libel." Some of this also comes from Cliff Robertson as Peter's Uncle Ben ("Computer analyst? Jeez, even computers need analysts nowadays.") Rosemary Harris as his Aunt May ("You do too much. You're not Superman, you know."), Norman Osborn ("Sure, they all love you until they go after your trust fund like a pack of rabid wolves!"), and others. "Spider-man" has its share of excitement as well as humor, but at times it tends to take itself too seriously. Writer David Koepp throws a lot of melodrama into the film when it should really just stick to being a fun little thriller. It shouldn't be taken as seriously as Koepp is trying to take it simply because it's a lot more interesting when it doesn't take those dramatic turns and sticks to what it knows how to do well.

One thing I really admired about "Spider-man" was its reluctance to go for the Hollywood ending. It arrives at that dreadful happy ending, but takes a quick turn just in the nick of time. I won't say what happens in the end, but the point is that no one is happy. As Spidey himself puts it: "With great power comes great responsibility. This is my gift, my curse."

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