Review:
Film "Spiderman"
By John Frame (2 June, 2002)
Spiderman (2002)
Director: Sam Raimi
Writer: Stan Lee, Steve Ditko
Actors: Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn, Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson.
There is no doubt that Spiderman is a great action movie in which romance is a minor device.
It’s more tragic than anything that the young man nearly shoots his web fluid every time he sees a woman who couldn’t have given a damn about him when he was less muscled and lacked assertion.
I’m looking forward to Spiderman 3, in which Peter Parker’s spider sense tells him that any romance he may have with the opposite sex is doomed to end with himself as the main course at the wedding banquet.
Luckily Spiderman finds himself strongly drawn to the new Marvel super hero in town – the openly gay Canadian Northstar – who teaches him how to really swing from building to building in search of rough trade up to no good.
Tobey Maguire acts well, is very physically impressive in a demanding role – and has an Oscar winning doe-eyed expression, which is used often. The absolute saving of the film is the uncompromising performance of Willem Dafoe as the gifted scientist corrupted and betrayed by the capitalist system, who’s out for revenge at any cost.