Review of Spider-Man (2002) by Miroslav G — 31 May 2014

2002's Spider-Man is a somewhat interesting superhero film, being arguably the first superhero film to solidify the superhero film genre's popularity in the mainstream film audience. But despite this, it's not all that great.

The original Spider-Man film has many problems, most of which are near impossible to overlook. First of all, the film hasn't aged all that well despite being made only a bit over a decade ago. The film is simply a product of it's time, and the filmmakers didn't take much into consideration about what would be featured in this film, including many trends and references that were popular at the time.

This may have seemed like a good idea during it's release, but all this comes off as ridiculous and grueling today. In addition to this, the production value is horrible; New York looks run down and dirty and the characters' outfits look poorly done; even Spider-Man's costume looks kind of bad (which is strange since the film had an extremely huge budget at the time of $140,000,000).

Thankfully though, this would be fixed in future installments. Secondly, the special effects don't hold up at all, and were horrible even by the standards back in 2002. Much of the CGI looks completely computerized and pasted onto the screen.

Lastly and most importantly, the film's cast for the most part are horrible and give some very uneven performances. Whether it's Kirsten Dunst, who has no idea how to act, gives some of the worst dialogue in the whole film, and seems like she's only there for Spider-Man to save her.

Or Tobey Maguire, who tries to give a good performance, but never really captures the essence of Peter Parker and especially Spider-Man (something Andrew Garfield would have little difficulty achieving only a decade later).

The only person to give a performance that even remotely stands out is Willem Dafoe as the Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin. Dafoe's portrayal is completely sinister and psychotic, going back and forth between innocent Norman Osborn and the sadistic Green Goblin seamlessly, which speaks for his duality as an actor.

Overall, this film is simply too easygoing, slightly cheesy, and campy and isn't accurate at all to the source material but is saved by one powerful performance and some magnificent action sequences.