Spider-Man

A superb piece of pop movie making. The Spider Man property has been held up for years by legal entanglements, and maybe that's a good thing, because now we get the full benefit of modern computer effects. More important, we get a sharp, funny script by David Koepp and excellent direction from Sam Raimi. At last we are given a comic book-based movie that lives up to its hype. Far superior to the dreary, assaultive "Batman" movies, and the progressively worse "Superman" flicks, "Spider-Man" wears its heritage lightly, and it layers a wistful romance over the tale of Peter Parker and his powers, or, as he describes them, "my gift, my curse." Since most humans know the back story, "Spider-Man" does well to sketch out the facts in the swiftest and most economical terms. In the deft opening scenes, it sets up Parker, the nerdy kid who is always the butt of jokes, his unrequited crush on Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), and his fateful encounter with a (updated for the new millennium) "genetically enhanced" super spider. The sequences showing Peter's growing awareness of his powers have a real charge to them (not to mention a strong element of adolescent wish fulfillment; who among us couldn't have used some special powers in high school?).

The action sequences, with Parker web-swinging through Manhattan's concrete canyons, are terrifically well done, and thrilling. Even more engaging, though, is the connection between Peter and Mary Jane. It is as believable a romance as one can find in a comic book, and maybe, for that matter, in a movie these days. The picture also does not shy away from the comic book's fundamental premise: that Spider-Man, though a hero, is always misunderstood, feared, and hated by much of the public. As Spider-Man's arch enemy, the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe, and, if the movie has a weakness, it is this rather standard issue villain), puts it, "no matter what you do for them, they will wind up hating you" (sounds a lot like what they say about America these days). That notion, as well as the bittersweet romance, makes "Spider-Man" far more than a special effects festival. The casting of Tobey Maguire was inspired. Though he clearly has been doing his pushups, he is nobody's idea of a traditional Hollywood hunk. But it is exactly his everyman persona that makes Peter Parker so believable, and "Spider-Man" so engaging.