HUGE

This, in my opinion, is the greatest comic book movie of all time.  The actors were sensational.  The effects were incredible.  Though there were a few changes to the original story (which happens in every film adaptation of an existing subject), they fit perfectly and definitely helped the story flow.

As a fan, I was incredibly impressed by the amount that they fit into this movie.  Without leaving anyone confused as to what was going on, more than 10 years of Spider-Man comic book history was covered.  Everything was covered from his awkward time in high school, to getting his powers, to dealing with Flash Thompson (the school jock/bully), to his complex relationship with Mary Jane.

Except for some cheezy scenes in which you would see Peter Parker or Spider-Man doing things as newspaper headlines spun through the background, the movie was exceptional.  At the same time, while these scenes were cheezy, they did kind of work.

This is a great movie.  It's a super hero movie about the guy behind the mask, not the hero.  Unlike Batman or Superman where all you want to see is the car or the flying, you actually care more about what is going on in Peter Parker's life than Spider-Man's.  And, while it is a comic book movie, instead of making the ending what someone who does not know the comic book might expect, the movie stayed true to the comic book.  I don't want to ruin it, but the ending is not quite as happy as a casual viewer might hope, but what happens is almost exactly what happened in the original comic.

Because of it's trueness to the comic book, both in character development, and not changing history to make a more pleasing film, this movie is not just a great translation of the comic book.  It is a great movie.

Bitten by the Spider, Man
by Michael Flanagan

Super

What a ride this was! For the first time in a long time (hopefully not for the last time) a hype-driven movie delivered, and delivered well. The latest entry in the superhero movie category, Spider Man is full of thrills, laughs, and some nice sexy moments guaranteed to send chills down your…spine.

I was never a fan of Spider Man. I have never once opened a Spidey comic book. For the first few decades of my life, my entire knowledge of the hero came from the cartoon “Spider Man and Friends,” where he teamed up with this fire girl and Ice Man and fought evil while saying pretty stupid things. There was also an earlier Spider Man movie, possibly made for television, in which Spider Man looked like a woman in the costume and he fought crime to 70’s funk guitar riffs. Sometime in the early 90’s I discovered the Spider Man daily newspaper strip, which bored me to tears. Then, in the late 90’s, I watched the Spider Man cartoon on the Fox Kids’ Network, which was okay, but not quite as good as the Batman or Superman cartoons.

So when I saw the Spider Man movie, I was expecting…nothing. I figured it could be fun, I would have a good time, and then I’d listen to my Spider-Man-fan-friends rip it apart over tiny little details, such as the Gwen Stacey girlfriend issue that I’ve been hearing about…and ignoring…for months. Instead, I discovered something that none of the previous mediums mentioned had been able to get across—Spider Man is cool.

The costumed scenes of the movie play out like a comic book in a way that no other comic book film has been able to. While most filmmakers, such as Tim Burton and Richard Donner have done arguably good jobs of transferring the superheroes and their stories to the big screen, Sam Raimi and David Koepp (and a team of uncredited writers) have managed to take the entire comic book and put it on the screen. This isn’t transferred characters—it’s the first successful medium transfer. The first comic book on the big screen. Spidey swings through the streets, twisting, turning, and hollering, like a real hero. The Green Goblin, excellently portrayed by a thankfully Nicholson-less Willem Dafoe, actually growls the line, “Your Web-slinging days are over, Spider Man.” And the thing is, it’s cool. It’s not dorky, nerdy, ridiculous, or unrealistic, because we are watching a comic book come to life, and if a comic book villain ever said something like, “Well, you costumed freak, I’m going to shoot you with this gun,” I don’t think many people would read them.

Spider Man is the fun, excitement, and innocence that comic books used to be. It’s a ride unlike any other, and hopefully, with extra emphasis on the hope (with a nod to the cool new Marvel production logo), it will be followed by more of the same.

Submit the YOUR Review for this movie and we'll make you famous!

Relief – Spider-Man
by Christian De Matteo

Super

Like a good piss after a long drive, Spider-Man was everything I could have hoped and nothing I expected it to be. I went out of respect for a childhood long before my current life that too closely resembles hell with a dress code, when Spider-Man was my hero of all heroes. These were the days when the web head could do a crossover into the Care Bears comic and I would have bought it, because Spidey was just the coolest.

I was twelve when flipping through the Daily News in my parents company when I read the news: Spider-Man to be made into a movie. Suddenly my life looked about ten times brighter (and that’s even having no idea how dark it would one day get when the Man strapped one on and went to town on me five days a week). My favorite Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man would be swinging his way to the silver screen, and probably only next summer, I thought! Well, let’s get a calculator and do some math… that would be… when I was twelve… oh yes, 19frickin89.

Obviously in the years that passed I’ve abandoned all hope and got cynical enough with films to realize that if they ever did make a movie it would probably suck and they would rip apart the decades of mythology that had been built around Peter Parker for some lame Spawn or Punisheresque film.

I sit here writing this, with Spider-Man fast rising the ranks into my top 20 list of all time movies. I love it. It is the best comic book based film I’ve ever seen, and easily the only one to so thoroughly capture the essence of the comic and all comics. Right at the end of the film, when one character is making a rather emphatic, emotional plea with our hero, I could have sworn I saw a comic talk bubble… yes, that on target.

Lines like, “We’ll meet again, Spider-Man!” which normally wouldn’t work at all in a film, work perfectly because you are not just watching a film. No. You are watching a comic book… and the best damn comic book ever at that. Directed perfectly by Sam Raimi (Army of Darkness, Darkman- also a great comic book movie, but NOT based on a comic book at all), every element that made each Spidey series fantastic is there, right down to the beyond perfectly cast Tobey Maguire. He was born to be Spider-Man. If they’d picked a beefcake type like Freddie Prinze Jr. (as was rumored) the whole formula would have fallen apart. But Maguire’s got the look… and he knows how to use it. He’s nerdy, but not unredeemably, and can easily slide into goofy cool status, which is exactly what Peter Parker requires.

Add to that the incredibly knowledge-filled and researched script by David Koepp (Panic Room, Snake Eyes) and every single bit of the Spider-Man recipe comes together. Everything that has ever been done with Spidey has always opted to accentuate the goofy side, and ignored the very dark side. No, he’s not Batman, but any true believer knows, that the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Spider-Man had a rough life with some dark alleyways in it. Raimi captures these with just the right amount of attention, not taking away from fun, cool, wise-cracking Spider-Man, but always keeping the shadow of the dark events that truly created the Spider-Man.

I could go on for days about this movie that sent me back with memories of great newsprint (on which at times it looks like the film was printed) and to the future, for which I look forward to every new installment… that is until someone gets the brainstorm to turn it over to Joel Schumacher… lord, I pray they don’t.

Spider-Man is an incredibly exciting film. Go see it, go see it again, and then… see it one more time. Let Hollywood know, this is how we want ‘em, no more Spawn debacles. If you’re going to take our heroes, do ‘em right.

Submit YOUR Review for this movie and we'll make you famous!

Awards & Nominations: IMdb

Full Cast & Credits: IMdb

Links: Official Site,