Review of Spider-Man (2002) by Mikey M — 11 Jul 2017

Arguably the moment where the superhero wave really started in a true, albeit imperfect, comic book fashion.

Spider-Man follows the template of the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko source material, with hero Peter Parker an orphaned, intellectual teen loner living in Queens with his aunt (Rosemary Harris) and uncle (Cliff Robertson), and dreaming of the girl next door, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst). On a field trip to a Columbia University lab, Peter is bitten by a genetically altered spider and overnight he gains superhuman strength, agility, and perception.

After watching "Spider-Man: Homecoming" (which I actually enjoyed), I thought I'd go back and re-watch all the Spider-Man films made since the original. To start off all the films, we start out with the original "Spider-Man" created by Sam Raimi. In all honesty, I didn't love this film. I wouldn't even consider it a great film, but I feel like this is what started the wave of superhero films that we have today.

Let's talk about Toby Maguire's version of Spider-Man. I think he's not the best version, considering Andrew Garfield brought this heavy hitting emotion to the role and Tom Holland brought a fun vibe to it. I think Maguire is fine for the most part. His acting is good but like I said, I don't think he's the most memorable version of Spider-Man to date.

This is a superhero film that feels a lot like a comic book. One thing about Marvel films is that they feel more realistic. The way they're shot and the color grading used is a lot more flat and realistic whereas here, it really is like a comic book on screen. In all honesty, I prefer what Marvel's been doing, or even D.C. (lots of vibrant colors and CGI), as this just felt really cheesy. I think it's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's good to have a mix of comic book films out there. This is just a different type of film, and the best way to describe it is that it's just a comic book on screen.

One thing I really liked about this film was the costumes. Spider-Man's costume here looked really real and the details in his suit were well brought out. I genuinely love his costume and I think the costume design here was really nice. The CGI obviously won't be phenomenal, being 15 years old, but I think it holds up decently.

In the end, the first film was okay. I don't think it was great but it certainly wasn't bad. I think it's a decent start, and we'll see how the rest goes.