by Mike Shea on 6 July 2004
I saw this weekend and regardless of what critics say, this is far from the best superhero movie.
Dr. Octopus is a fun villain except like almost every other super-villain, he's crazy. He has no clear motivation, nothing I can understand, that drives him to try to kill so many people. For a villain he kills very few people. Super-villains should have clear motivations to do what they do. Consider Magneto or Stryker in X-Men 2. They are far deeper villains with far clearer motivations. Wacky arms making him go skitzo isn't enough for me.
Spiderman can do anything. Instead of using his brain to come up with creative solutions to hard problems (that sounds like an ad for IBM) he does the impossible over and over again. Consider the scene where he tries to stop a train going 120 miles an hour by sticking his leg out and smashing through about fifty railroad ties. Why would he be able to do that? He's strong but his leg isn't made out of titanium. He then stops the train using nothing but his hands and shoulders which would easily have ripped out of their sockets.
This violates the Gremlins rule. Spiderman has super powers, but infinite strength and endurance were not part of them. He's strong but not immortal.
Computer effects ruin movies. Like the first movie, I could care less about all of his fancy flying around. Computers can make him do whatever they want him to do; you aren't impressing me with his zipping around. I would prefer to see a Spiderman movie with no effects at all. Think creativly! Come up with the Notorious version of Spiderman where action is described off screen and the depth of the story has to stand or die on its own.
The story elements to Spiderman aren't so bad. The relationship between Mary Jane and Parker is a bit heavy and there is a scene of a woman running in a wedding dress but much of the story isn't too bad. I would have liked to see more of the role Matt Damon played in Good Will Hunting; that scene where he pushes Skylar's arms down, looks at her cold, and says "I don't love you" would have gone so much better than Tobey Maguire's glassy eyed love. I didn't even believe he didn't love her and I didn't care that much for him.
isn't a bad movie but X-Men 1, X-Men 2, and the original Superman are far better movies. Go watch Unbreakable instead.