A Review of "Spider-Man" (2002)

I'll bet if Tobey Maguire tried to contort his body like Todd MacFarlane used to draw Spider-Man's poses he'd rip every
ligament and tendon out of socket in a heartbeat.

Happy Friday! Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. OH BOY! Do I have a treat for us prior to Halloween 2K23! (Details on that coming probably right at the start of October. I'm usually last-minute minded like that).

"Spider-Man! I can't climb down! It's too far!"
"Look lady I would really appreciate if you could because
I currently have the egregious need to SHIT!!"

Back in "the day"... "the day" being "a simpler time when fifteen or twenty superhero movies weren't crapped into movie theaters every year, one daisy-chained to the next and requiring oodles of your time to even comprehend references, much less plot points"... superhero movies were box-office wild cards. They could either succeed! (i.e. Blade, X-Men) or bomb terribly (i.e. The Phantom, Batman & Robin). Sure we have superhero movies that bomb nowadays... but those pesky Marvel neckbeards will explain away flaws and lazy filmmaking with "Martin Scorsese sucks" or something. I don't know, just watch Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and you'll get what I mean.

My point is that back then, believe it or not, special care had to be taken with each entry, and each had to dazzle audiences to even warrant the making of a sequel. Nowadays, a superhero movie has two sequels, an eight-episode TV miniseries, and an event in fucking Fortnite planned and even in-progress before it's even released to theaters. I blame Marvel for all this autofellatio of one's own intellectual properties, but ironically Marvel is also responsible for today's entry. Ranked as my seventeenth favorite movie back in the day here, and one I tout about endlessly when superhero movies get brought up in casual conversation... this is Sam Raimi's post 9/11 happy pill to the American people, 2002's Spider-Man. Starring that nerd from Pleasantville, that chick from Bring It On, the vampire from, well, Shadow of the Vampire, and the brown-haired idiot from everything Seth Rogen's been in... Spider-Man kind of took cinemas by storm. It was a major, MAJOR hit when it came out, almost reaching unexpected levels. People fell in love with heroic story arc, the imagery, the love story, the accurate (mostly) take on the source material... it was quite a cornerstone of pop culture superhero cinema.

... but that was twenty-one (barf) years ago. Does it even hold up with eeeeeverything that has come since? Surely there are some Spider-Man things that have come out since then that it pales in comparison to? Let's do the synopsis, and then I'll give you my own retrospective and honest thoughts, both as a boy in 2002, and as an adult in 2023.

"Now feel the wrath of the Green Goblin!"
"All I feel is the your monumental codpiece slippin' between
the cheeks, man!"

The origin story of Spider-Man is no secret to anyone. In fact it's often meme'd that this is one of the most well-known origin stories because from 2002 to 2023, the Spider-Man film franchise has been rebooted three times. That's an average of a new take on the character every seven years. Never fear; I'll still walk through the synopsis like we don't even know who Spider-Man is, and then we'll continue. The movie opens after a triumphant opening credits sequence... another thing in movies that has gone the way of the Dodo bird... on a school trip, a high school senior named Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) visits a Columbia University genetics laboratory with his friend Harry Osborn (James Franco) and his love interest Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). There, a genetically engineered "super-spider" bites him, and he falls ill upon returning home. Meanwhile, Harry's father Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), a scientist and the founder and owner of OsCorp, tries to secure an important military contract. He experiments on himself with an unstable performance-enhancing chemical and goes insane, killing his assistant Dr. Strom (Ron Perkins) in the process... man what a dick.

The next day, Peter finds he is no longer near-sighted and has developed spider-like abilities: he can shoot webs out of his wrists... yes without web shooters OH THE HORROR... and has quick reflexes, superhuman speed and strength, and a heightened ability to sense danger. Brushing off his Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson)'s advice that "with great power comes great responsibility", Peter considers buying a car to impress Mary Jane. He enters an underground wrestling event to win the money for it and wins his first match against the MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAGE HOOOOO YEAH SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!... but is cheated out of his earnings. After Ben is carjacked and killed moments later, Peter pursues the carjacker, only to find out it was a thief he let escape. He doesn't get a name 'til the third movie, so for now I will call him "Thiefy McStealthings" (Michael Papajohn). Thiefy attempts to flee but dies after falling out a window. R.I.P. Mr. McStealthings. Meanwhile, a crazed Norman interrupts a product test by OsCorp's rival Quest Aerospace and kills several people. The... monumental dick.

"Damn, Aunt May's going to know I'm
Spider-Man when she sees this stain on here.
Who else enjoys McDonalds' tangy BBQ
sauce?!"

Upon graduating high school, Peter begins using his abilities to fight injustice, donning a spandex costume and the masked persona of "Spider-Man". J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons... yes, yes all hail the King), publisher of the Daily Bugle newspaper, hires Peter as a freelance photographer, since he is the only person providing clear images of Spider-Man. You know, quick sidebar: everyone likes to argue that Superman wearing glasses is a lazy disguise that everyone should pick up on... but I'll argue that Peter Parker coming forward as the only photographer that can conveniently take pictures of Spider-Man when nobody knew who he was prior... is an equally lazy disguise. BOOM. This wouldn't be a Spider-Man movie review without some hot takes.

Anywho, upon discovering that OsCorp's board plans to oust him to sell the company to Quest, Norman assassinates them. Jameson dubs the mysterious killer the "Green Goblin." The Goblin offers Peter a place at his side, but he refuses. They fight, and Peter is wounded. At Thanksgiving dinner, Peter's Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) invites Mary Jane, Harry, and Norman. During the dinner, Norman sees the wound he wounded Peter's wound with earlier... try saying that five times fast... and realizes Peter's identity. Thinking the only way to defeat Peter is to attack those special to him, Norman later attacks May, forcing her to be hospitalized. While visiting Aunt May at the hospital, Mary Jane admits her infatuation with Spider-Man, who has rescued her on two occasions. Harry, who is dating Mary Jane, sees her holding Peter's hand and assumes she has feelings for him. That's a... pretty easy deduction to make, Harry. Not going to lie. Devastated, Harry tells his father that Peter loves Mary Jane, unknowingly revealing Spider-Man's biggest weakness.

"You know, I'm something of a captioned screenshot in a
blog, myself."

Norman holds Mary Jane and a Roosevelt Island Tram car full of children hostage alongside the Queensboro Bridge. In the climactic final battle, the Goblin forces Spider-Man to choose whom he wants to save and drops them both. Peter saves both Mary Jane and the tram car. Norman then throws him into a nearby abandoned building and brutally beats him, in a fight scene that is still to this day equally as savage as it is brutal, and something very little Spider-Man media has been able to match. Hail to the Evil Dead man himself, Sam Raimi for not shunning away from the brutality. Peter gains the upper hand, and Norman reveals himself and begs for forgiveness while subtly getting his glider ready to impale Peter from behind... the, the outright EVIL and MALICIOUS DICK. Warned by his spider-sense, Peter dodges the attack, and the glider impales Norman instead... ending his life just after the often-memed utterance of "Oh." Norman tells Peter not to reveal his identity as the Goblin to Harry before dying. Peter takes Norman's body to the Osborn house and is confronted by Harry, who pulls a gun on him, but Peter escapes.

At Norman's funeral, Harry swears vengeance on Spider-Man, whom he falsely holds responsible for his father's death. Mary Jane confesses to Peter that she loves him. Peter, however, feels he must protect her from the unwanted attention of his enemies, so he hides his true feelings and calmly but sadly puts M.J.'s ass in the friend zone. As Peter leaves, he recalls Ben's words and accepts his new responsibility as Spider-Man before a triumphant, movie-ending swing to Danny Elfman's epic score cues up my nine-year-old-ass's demand for Spider-Man 2 right there on the spot.

Do you or a loved one suffer from too many pumpkin bomb
explosives to the face? If so, you could be entitled to a
large cash settlement.

... and that was the first cinematic foray into Spider-Man, Marvel's web-slinging pop-culture icon. Let me just get this out of the way now. I still worship this movie. I know, I know; that was predictable. Like I not only love this movie, I still worship it. I WILL admit though, I must; a lot of it is my unwillingness to surrender one of the happiest times of my childhood. I mean when I say "this movie changed me", I mean that's huge. I can't say that about a lot of movies. Very few actually. Think inwardly; how many movies can you say changed you? When I got out of school on that Friday, May 3rd, 2002, and my dad took me and my brother to see Spider-Man at THEATER NAME in the town of TOWN NAME, STATE NAME... I mean I walked out of that theater a completely different kid. I thought this movie was bad. ass. I fell in love with pretty much everything about it. I loved the cinematography, the action, the design, the story, Kirsten Dunst; I mean I was like "Holy schmoly this movie ROCKS!!!" Before this movie, Spider-Man to me was a fun Nintendo 64 game, a Fox Kids TV show, and a comic book series. AFTER this movie, my life became Spider-Man.

I had the Spider-Man movie storybook, I had the soundtrack that came out in support of the movie with that Chad Kroeger song everybody probably memes nowadays, I got the 2-disc DVD and pretty much memorized every special feature on it, watched every documentary, saw the blooper reels and deleted scenes countless times, watched every facet of every clip of every show on how this movie was made and most of all... I had the Treyarch movie tie-in video game that I played through I can't even begin to count how many times. This movie was and still is a large part of a nostalgia-laden reminiscence into my youth.

"Uh... Kirsten? Kirsten do we... do we need to turn the
heat up in here? Get you a coat or something?"

Usually I end the blog post with my final thoughts, a la Jerry Springer, but I think we can both agree that it goes without saying about what I think about the movie itself, I still think it's badass and I still get a supreme level of joy out of watching it. I'll pop it in once a year just to enjoy the ride start to finish and at the end credits, when "Hero" is playing... I'm ear-to-ear. BUT look I know, this isn't a Cody's nostalgia blog and nostalgia can't protect anything, nor should it... I have to remember this is an honest-to-God movie review blog, so how I must do my job and give an honest critique about how I feel it has been impacted by what's come after it. Does it still hold up? In comparison to more recent Spider-Man media? I would say "yes" HOWEVER... however... because of the time it was made, the effects, the storytelling choices, and the heavy heavy post-9/11 American unity and camaraderie imagery sprinkled throughout (lookin' at you "mess with one of us, mess with all of us" moment on the bridge), I must say it seems a bit... dated. While I, again, worship this movie, I must say it is not without it's flaws. Whether they were there in the beginning and just became more noticeable over time, or just suffers by what later movies did better by comparison; Spider-Man still is a movie, and there is no such thing as a perfect movie.

The movie is campy by today's standards. It's definitely overacted, Willem Dafoe hams the shit out of his screentime as the Goblin persona. I think it's the right amount of Batman '66 mixed with genuine horror, but some people will disagree and I respect that, and can see it. J.K. Simmons is a hammy oaf too, but we all know his performance ended up playing right into what we wanted and needed for the live-action J. Jonah Jameson character. So much so that the MCU didn't even bother re-casting the role, they just made him Jameson again. They knew it wasn't going to be beat. He's up there with Christopher Reeve as Superman and Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man... just spot on superhero casting you're not going to top. There's also the thing that movies back then used to do that movies today don't seem to that is glaring... and that is casting actors in their 30s to play high schoolers. Pretty glaring in the school scenes, when Flash Thompson looks like a guy going on thirty-four beating up on Tobey Maguire who looked fifteen.

I'll bet this is how J.K. Simmons showed up to the audition.
Just leaned in the doorway in full wardrobe like "I'm here to
fuck your shit up".

I also must point out that the story's overall narrative seems just a teeny-bit "simple". Nerd gets bullied, nerd becomes hero, hero saves girl, hero beats up bad guy, movie ends. Again, I still love sitting through it, but yeah, even I notice. Hold up, I think Brendan Fraser summed it up best in The Mummy which we should review sometime: "Rescue the damsel-in-distress, kill the bad guy, save the world". Done and done, and nothing too fancy tossed in there. I admire it for its simplicity which allows it to focus on some of the other aspects such as the romance and the action, but some people, namely stupid kids nowadays will balk at the straightforward "A to B to C" story structure.

Despite me just being fair and calling it like it is, I still must salute and absolutely recommend Spider-Man out of pure love, admiration, and yes, nostalgia. One of my absolute favorite movies of all time. Despite its campiness, it's got some gripping dialogue and nail-biting moments that keep you roped in. Despite being overacted, you can be enamored with Willem Dafoe and J.K. Simmons stealing the show and eating up the screentime every chance you get, and the peril and dazzling rescue moments still stand proud. Despite the simplistic narrative done time and time again, there's enough action, dweeby moments, and even some dark-and-brutal violence tossed in to keep you glued to the screen. Spider-Man to me is a one of a kind movie. It not only is enjoyable in 2023, but it also serves as an excellent remembrance of that time in 2002 when America was unified following terrible terrorist attacks and engaged in a common ideology, common goals... and that heroism in a silly comic book movie made us feel like everything would be alright. From Danny Elfman's whimsical score, that Chad Kroeger song, great costume and set design, the romance, the thrills, and the eeriness in Dafoe... it stands to me still as a solid, top-notch adaptation of the comic book character, and should be remembered as not only a noteworthy movie, but a noteworthy event for years, if not decades, to come.