Spider-Man On The Big Screen.

Spider-Man

I thought this movie was the best yet from the superheroes. I have not felt this strongly about a good guy since the first Superman. As for the Batman Movies none of them can hold a candle to this superb action, comedy, romance movie. The newer superhero movies like X-men and Blade are very poor on character development and that makes the action seens useless, if you don’t care about the characters, it doesn’t matter if they’re beating the crap out of each other.

Spider-Man starts off showing us a very nerdy Peter Parker, played to perfection byToby Maguire. Maguire does a great job showing us the human side of Spider-Man before he becomes Spider-Man. He has a touching relationship with his elderly aunt and uncle who have raised him since the death of his parents. Toby Maguire also plays the perfect shy kid who has a deep love for his longtime next door neighbor played by Kirsten Dunst.

After a genetically altered spider bites Peter Parker on a class fieldtrip, his powers literally come over night. After Peter felt violently ill from the bite, he woke up in the morning feeling great. He went to put on his nerdy eyeglasses and he realizes he has perfect vision. He walks over to the mirror and notices his previous Pee-Body physique has turned into a lean mean a.s whooping machine. I’m not sure if this kid lifted weights for the flic or if they used computers, but he had a lot more muscle than he did at the start of the movie

The comedy in this movie comes when Peter Parker notices he’s not getting any action from the next-door neighbor. She seems to like the guys that drive the fancy cars and play for the football team. She is desperately out of his league. Thumbing through the newspaper he realizes the price of a new car is equally out of his league, but he stumbles over an advertisement for an under ground wrestling organization that will pay all challengers to attempt to stay in the ring for three minutes with their humongous professional wrestler (Macho-Man Randy Savage). Feeling confident with his newfound ability to jump and flip in the air like a human sized spider, his only concern is what to wear; after all, a wrestler with the ability of a spider needs to wear something cool, right? Peter Parker gets in the wresting wring with his droopy red sweatpants, his homemade Spidey shirt and a red winter stocking cap for a mask. It looked like Halloween at the trailer park.

Watching Spider-Man getting the hang of his new abilities is the most enjoyable part of this movie. He sits in his bedroom for hours flinging webs and climbing the walls. I like all of the simple parts of this movie that reflects the humble nature of Peter Parker. I think the credit for this goes to Toby Maguire; I feel he is one of the most realistic and likeable actors today.

The movie turns from simple to grand when Willem Dafoe’s character comes into the action. Dafoe who shows his acting brilliance by playing a split personality villain (Green Goblin) and Peter Parker’s roommate's father (Norman Osborn). The Green Goblin seeks revenge on the company that fired him and ultimately seeks his revenge by killing as many people as possible. The Green Goblin feels Spider-Man is a worthy opponent, so, he gives him an ultimatum to join his realm of terror or fall victim to his violence. The Green Goblin has much more firepower and is far more aggressive. In fact he beats the tar out of Spider-Man several times through out the movie, but Spider-Man can take a beaten.

The Bottom Line On Spider-Man.
I enjoyed this movie mainly because of the outstanding cast; I think the acting blows away any of the previous superhero movies. I think the computer animation was at times obvious, but that just added to the charm of this movie. The mixture of time spent on Peter Parker and time spent on Spider-Man was absolutely perfect. I think there will be several more Spider-Man Movies before Toby Maguire gets to old for red tights. This movie would be enjoyable for all ages, I went to see this by myself and if my daughter allows, I will be seeing it again with my grandson. My only complaint would be the absence of the Spider-Man Theme Song, I thought playing the famous song would have added to the action or at least would have been fun to play over the credits. That is a minor set back for an outstanding and fun movie. I give Spider-Man a perfect 5 stars

Update: The great XsarenkaX and several other Epinions writers have informed me that if you wait long enough after the movie, the original Spider-Man song plays over the credits.



















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