Review of Spider-Man (1977) by Mikhail B — 13 Sep 2014

If any story is worth 3D this is it. Spiderman rules! You know the routine... A shy orphan, fond of photography, gets bitten by a mutant spider, develops supernatural abilities, and starts helping the police catch criminals.

In his final battle he confronts a monster lizard and, predictably, wins. This said, very little was copied from the previous script, to the final product's advantage; the chief of the local police replaces the annoying editor-in-chief and discontinues being a stubborn bully, instead, explains his opposition towards Spiderman clearly, and even takes the chance to change his mind in course of the losing battle against the lizard.

Instead of the Gotham-city-styled strange and sick Peter Parker and his girlfriend in all previous versions, we have a more-or-less balanced and serious characters with a harmless liar Peter and hyperactive nerd Gwen Stacy who fell for the bustard.

For once, Gwen is no longer a sex-doll. The technology behind the super-hero qualities become more advanced and complicated, and therefore, more credible. Some questions are still there to be asked: for instance, why not everybody gets bitten by Oscorp's mutant spiders, if turning into a super hero is so easy/ Why one capsule of antidote sprayed over the city was enough to neutralise numerous capsules of poison sprayed directly on the infected police officers.

Why the Grand Evil is so lame: the look of it (a giant reptile, that looks like a man in a lizard suit) is rather unexciting, and the Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde story has not been stressed hard enough.

But not for that do you go to a preliminary showing of the movie, but for the stunning promenade above L.A. & New York streets. After the credits the director promises to return back; I, for one, will be waiting.