Spider-Man (2002) Review

 Spider-Man (2002) 7/10

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

Hello everyone. I’m back with another review. Today, I’ll be tackling Spider-Man (2002). Spider-Man was originally released on May 3, 2002 with director Sam Raimi (the same guy that did The Evil Dead). Now, the last time I’ve seen this movie was back when it was released in theaters, so it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen this. This is a good movie that can take itself serious and has all of that early 2000’s cheese to it. It does have some slight problems though. Let’s begin.

This is an origin story for our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. After being bitten by a radioactive spider, our hero Peter Parker starts to experience changes to his body. More muscle mass, faster reflexes, can sense impending danger (Spider Sense), stick to walls, and can shoot webs from his wrists. With this also comes more confidence in himself. Standing up to his bully Flash Thompson and able to actually talk with his childhood crush Mary Jane, Peter has become a new man. While his life is changing, some shit is going down at Oscorp. Norman Osborne is slowly losing his grip on his company. After volunteering to be a test subject to an experimental muscle enhancer, Norman starts to change and not for the better. Becoming The Green Goblin, Norman starts to take his revenge on the people that are taking his livelihood away. Spider-Man intervenes and now Peter needs to stop Green Goblin before he hurts any more people. Along the way, Peter will know an even deeper meaning to Uncle Ben’s final lesson: With great power comes great responsibility. 

After sitting on this for a little bit, this is a really good story. Sadly, its execution can be a bit better. I love Peter’s internal struggle at the beginning after Uncle Ben dies. I love Peter’s growth into the famous butt-kicking Spider-Man that we know today. MJ was a great side character too. I love her struggle with her home life and then dealing with Harry and his family issues. Speaking of Harry, he’s exactly how he should be in the comics. Norman was a great villain. You feel for him as he goes insane over the drug and wants revenge on the people that wronged him. He was also a great opposite to Spider-Man. I will say, why wasn’t Gwen in this movie? I was also hoping that we got to see Dr. Connors as well (he got mentioned, so that’s cool). I do feel like they could’ve developed MJ a bit more (showing her interest in science and being a reporter). Hopefully this will come up in the next movie. The overall story for this was great. Starting off Spider-Man with one of his major villains was a great idea and giving Spider-Man an internal conflict right off the bat was great too.

So I’m going to be nitpicking here a little bit. First off, why were Aunt May and Uncle Ben so old? If they were to go more comic accurate, why did Sam Raimi make them look like they were in their late 70’s? I know they are suppose to be old, but fuck man. I’m not hating the characters, but I just find it to be a weird design choice. Another thing, why did no one say shit when Peter was doing gymnastics against Flash? You’d think the crowd would be like “When the hell did he learn to do that?” and stuff like that. Another thing: Where did Peter get the materials for his Spider-Man outfit? I know when he did the wrestling match that that was a prototype suit, but his final design came out of nowhere. I can kinda understand Norman’s suit. Wait. Actually no. Where the fuck did the suit come from? There’s no way Norman got the Green Goblin suit without anyone noticing. Or where it came from in the first place. The movie never mentions where the suit originated from, just the glider. Again, the movie is just throwing these in without giving any notice on how these appeared in the first place.

The acting was great. Toby Maguire played a great Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Kirsten Dunst was decent as MJ, but could’ve been better. Willem Dafoe was a fantastic Green Goblin, truly capturing Green Goblin’s insanity and brutality. I will say, some of the love scenes felt very awkward (especially the hospital scene between Peter and MJ).

The film’s dialogue could’ve been done better too. Some lines were just cringy while others just weren’t delivered well. I don’t know, I guess this fits in with the cheesiness of the movie.

The camera work is cool, I guess. None of the shots really jumped out at me. The CGI for the action parts were kinda bad. Thankfully not Spy Kids 3 level of horrific, but it helps give the film some charm to it. It was cool seeing how computer graphics used to look like back in the day.

The music is actually pretty cool. The songs and tunes for the film fit perfectly and helped convey that superhero feel. Much more reminiscent than modern superhero film scores (like the Avengers constantly relying on the main theme). However, they used fucking Nickelback for the end credits and ugh. I just hate them honestly lmao. 

Overall, this was a decent film and I’m glad that I finally got around to watching it. If you are into Marvel, Spider-Man, or even Sam Raimi’s works, then I recommend checking this out. It’s not the best thing ever, but it’s still entertaining. It’s also cool seeing the start of a whole new generation of superhero movies and fans. Some time in the future, I’ll watch the critically acclaimed Spider-Man 2, but for now, I’ll be holding off on that. 

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.