Spiderman was a childhood hero for me. I can’t remember but back in the old DD days we used to have a cartoon show on it. That title track still rings in my ears.
What I like about Spiderman is that he’s not perfect. He is an ordinary person who can do extraordinary things due to the bite of a spider. He casts his webs and tries to solve the problems of his city.
The movie has a great cast with good stars such as Toby McGuire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Cliff Robertson and Willem Dafoe. It was refreshing to see this movie smash all box office records. It did spectacularly well in India as well. Dafoe as Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin is good as ever but Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker or Spiderman delivers a great performance, a performance which makes him look likeable and charming if you will. Kirsten Dunst is as sweet and amiable as her role would allow her to be and maybe a little more. Cliff Robertson as Mr. Jamieson is hilarious as the Editor of the newspaper Peter Parker works for. Sam Raimi’s direction both with the technical details as well as the acting part is spot on and tremendous. James Franco as Harry Osborn has little scope in this movie but he will have meatier parts in the sequels I guess based on the ending of this film.
The film combines nice action sequences, amazing digital effects, nice humor early on and some moral lessons along with a simplistic story line of good versus evil. Also the dialogues or the screenplay is very nice. Tobey Maguire has some funny, witty ones and Willem Dafoe has some good devilish ones.
The hallmark of a great movie is its storyline. This film packs a punch in that department. It contains many subplots which add to or enhance the story such as Pete’s relations with his uncle and aunt, his friend Harry, the girl next door Mary Jane Watson or MJ, Mary Jane’s relation with Harry, Pete and her own Dad, Harry’s love hate relations with his Dad, Norman Osborn’s troubles in business, his frustration at being asked to resign from the company he started.
Believe you me, this is no boom boom bang bang action film. It’s not as if there is a continuous action sequence. There are many well shot ones, but they are fairly interspersed in the movie. The movie has a good pace, when it got over I felt as if I would have loved watching more. Another sign of a good movie, usually you want to get the hell out as soon as the titles start being played. Now for the story in short;
Peter Parker a high school nerd gets bitten by a genetically modified spider and is able to spin webs and jump long distances. He becomes stronger, faster and has a sense of pre-recognition of the events about to occur. Meanwhile Norman Osborn a scientist develops performance enhancers for military use and tests it upon himself. Needless to say that does not go well and he ends up with a split personality, basically he becomes insane. He eliminates all those who come in his way. When Spiderman does, he first tries to woo Spiderman to join him, but as he comes to know his identity, targets the people close to him and they have a scuffle and Spiderman edges him out. In the middle there are very chilling scenes when Peter does not stop a robber from escaping and that robber kills his uncle. In the end when Spiderman eliminates the Green Goblin (Norman Osborn), he (Norman) requests Spiderman to prevent the truth from being known to his son Harry a close friend of Pete. When Spiderman goes to Norman Osborn’s house to keep his body, Harry sees him and he now thinks that Spiderman killed his Dad and promises to take revenge. That will probably be what the sequel will be about.
The best aspect of the movie would be editing. There is not one more scene than it should be. All scenes are important and carry the story forward. Well Spun story. Peter Parker actually narrates this story in the film. Tobey Maguire’s voice is haunting. I’d like to end with one of his lines.
“With great power comes great responsibility. Who am I? I am Spiderman.”