After decades stuck in development, director Sam Raimi was given the great responsibility of bringing Spider-Man to the silver screen and he succeeded. He, along with the cast and crew, do an amazing job adapting the comic-book series created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko into a spectacular superhero blockbuster.
Buy Spider-Man Blu-rayPeter Parker (Tobey Maguire), a nerdy high-school senior interested in science and photography, lives with his Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) and Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) after losing his parents. The only classmates who are kind to him are his friend Harry Osborne (James Franco) and next-door-neighbor Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), who he has long had a crush on.
While attending a field trip at Columbia University where experiments are conducted to genetically design super-spiders, Peter gets bitten by one. The next morning he experiences changes. His senses are enhanced, and he can shoot webbing out his wrists (a change from the web and shooter he created in the comics). He has newfound strength, agility, and can even climb walls. He tests out his abilities, with the help of visual effects supervisor John Dykstra and his team, and adapts to them quickly.
Meanwhile, Harry’s father Norman (Willem Dafoe) is a scientist and CEO of Oscorp. They are working on a performance enhancer. In rodents, it has been found to increase strength by 800%; however, side effects involve violence, aggression, and insanity. Fearful of losing the military contract to a competitor, Norman tests the enhancer on himself.
Peter wants to get a sports car to impress MJ. He decides to wrestle to make money. Wearing a homemade disguise, the announcer (Bruce Campbell) gives him the name “Spider-Man.” When Peter is cheated out of the money he’s owed by the wrestling promoter, he refuses to help when the promoter gets robbed. Unfortunately, the robber also kills Uncle Ben during his escape. This is another change from the comic as Peter is given a motive not to help promoter, so he doesn’t look as selfish since he was just wronged by the man.
After graduation, Peter and Harry get a place in the city. MJ moves there too and starts dating Harry to Peter’s chagrin. Peter sells pictures of Spider-Man to the Daily Bugle, whose publisher J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons, who gives a brilliant comedic performance straight out of a 1930s screwball comedy) sees Spider-Man as both a menace and a money-maker when it comes to selling newspapers
Norman develops a split personality and disguises himself with Osborn tech, becoming the Green Goblin. He bombs his competitor. After Oscorp’s board sells the company out from under him, he attacks them at a big festival, but Spider-Man saves the day. Norman discovers Peter is Spider-Man and forces him to choose between saving MJ or a bunch children in a bus after dropping both off a bridge.
While the visual effects and the stunt work are what make the movie exciting, David Koepp’s script grounds the story with characters to care about in between action sequences. The audience roots for Peter to succeed over the obstacles he encounters as a young man growing up, hopes a romance between Peter and MJ will blossom even though she falls in love with his alter ego, and understands Harry’s resentment towards Spider-Man after his father is defeated.
Fans of Spider-Man comics should enjoy this, and the many Easter eggs, as should fans of action movies. There’s no surprise its box-office success led to a sequel.
