Grade:  B

Director:  Sam Raimi		Released:  May 2002
Writer:  David Koepp, Stan Lee & Steve Ditko		MPAA Rating:  PG-13
Players:  Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco		Running time:  121 minutes

Ratings System

Hollywood has a fine tradition of filming beautiful women in revealing outfits, and even nude on occasion.  You'll be relieved to know that Spider-Man upholds that tradition in the form of Kirsten Dunst.  We see Kirsten's shapely legs in a short waitress outfit.  We see Kirsten's breasts in a wet shirt during a rainstorm.  We see Kirsten's smile and come-hither looks as the camera dreamily closes in on her face.  This is good stuff.  Kirsten Dunst (as Mary Jane) is the girl-next-door every boy wishes they had.  As far as comic book movies go, Kirsten Dunst is the hottest love interest EVER!  Hotter than Kim Basinger, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman, or Nicole Kidman in the Batman movies.  Hotter than any of the girls in X-Men.  Hotter than Madonna in Dick Tracy.  And way hotter than Margot Kidder in Superman.  And that is what's important, right?  How hot is the leading lady?

As for the rest of the movie ...  Who cares!?!  Did you see Kirsten Dunst's boobs?

Actually, I care quite a bit about the character of Spider-Man.  He's been my favorite comic book superhero since I was 6 years old.  I even have a 1979 Spidey comic from Spain (all in Spanish), which my father brought me.  I have to give crocoPops some credit for turning me on to comic books.  Nothing was better than when he would come home from work with a new Spider-Man or Archie comic under his arm.  Needless to say, I was very interested in how this movie was going to turn out, because for me, Spider-Man is personal.  Peter Parker was a guy I could relate to, the guy with everyday problems, the guy who wasn't exactly smooth with the ladies.  I'm very satisfied with the movie version of Spider-Man, his essence was captured correctly, even if all of the details weren't.

There's been a lot of commotion about the computer generated Spider-Man that performs most of the stunts and web-slinging in the movie.  And I have to say that he does look fake.  Some of it is extremely poor (Parker running across the rooftops), much of it was good enough for government work, none of it was completely realistic.  And that's okay, it doesn't really detract from the film.

Willem Dafoe is excellent as Green Goblin, Tobey Maguire is fine in the lead role, I already told you about Kirsten Dunst, James Franco is very good as Harry, And I loved J.K. Simmons as J.J. Jameson.

There are a lot of things I like about this movie, a lot of scenes that are immediate classics.  Yet somehow it doesn't jump out and grab me and shake me with how tremendous of a film it is, and that's kind of what I was hoping for.

- crocoPuffs