The Spider-Man Retrospective Series - Spider-Man (2002)

Written In May 2014

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

High-school senior Peter Parker visits a genetics laboratory with his friend Harry Osborn and Peter’s love interest, Mary Jane Watson. There, Peter is bitten on the hand by a genetically engineered "super spider". Shortly after arriving home to his Aunt Mayand Uncle Ben, he is rendered unconscious. Meanwhile, Harry’s father, scientist Norman Osborn, owner of Oscorp, is attempting to preserve his company’s critically important military contract. He experiments on himself with a new but unstable performance-enhancing chemical vapor that increases his speed, strength, and stamina. However, it also drives him insane and he kills his assistant, Mendel Stromm. The next morning, Peter finds that his previously impaired vision has improved and that his body hasmetamorphosized into a more muscular physique. At school, he finds his body producing webbing and that his quickened reflexes let him avoid injury during a confrontation with bully Flash Thompson. Peter discovers he has developed superhuman speed, strength, the ability to stick to surfaces, and a heightened ability to sense danger.

Brushing off Uncle Ben’s advice that “With great power comes great responsibility,” Peter enters a wrestling tournament to get money to buy a car and impress Mary Jane. He wins his match, but the promoter cheats him out of the contest money. When a thief steals money from the promoter, Peter allows the thief to escape. He later discovers his Uncle Ben has been carjacked and shot dead. Peter confronts the carjacker only to realize it was the same thief he let get away. After Peter disarms him, the fleeing carjacker falls out a window and dies. Meanwhile, Norman Osborn kills several scientists and the military’s General Slocum.

Upon graduating school, Peter begins using his abilities to fight injustice, donning a costume and the persona of Spider-Man. Newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson hires as afreelancephotographer, since Peter is the only person providing clear images of Spider-Man.

Norman, upon learning Oscorp’s board members plan to sell the company, assassinates them at the World Unity Fair. Jameson quickly dubs the mysterious killer the Green Goblin. The Goblin offers Spider-Man a place at his side, but Spider-Man refuses. At the Osborn and Parkers' Thanksgiving dinner, Norman, unknown to Peter, deduces Spider-Man’s true identity; the Green Goblin subsequently attacks and hospitalizes Aunt May.

Mary Jane admits she has a crush on Spider-Man, who has rescued her on numerous occasions, and she asks Peter whether Spider-Man ever asked about her. Harry, who loves Mary Jane, arrives and learns she does not feel likewise toward him. Devastated, Harry tells his father that Peter loves Mary Jane, unintentionally revealing Spider-Man’s biggest weakness.

The Goblin holds Mary Jane and a Roosevelt Island Tram car full of children hostage alongside the Queensboro Bridge. He forces Spider-Man to choose who he wants to save, and drops Mary Jane and the children. Spider-Man manages to save both Mary Jane and the tram car, while the Goblin is pelted by civilians showing loyalty to Spider-Man. The Goblin then grabs Spider-Man and throws him into an abandoned building where they fight. When the Goblin boasts of how he will later kill Mary Jane, an enraged Spider-Man overpowers the Goblin, unmasking him.

Norman begs for forgiveness, but his Goblin persona attempts to remote-control his glider to impale Spider-Man. The superhero avoids the attack, causing the glider to impale Norman instead, finally killing him. In his dying breath, Norman tells Peter not to tell Harry about his crimes. Spider-Man takes Norman’s body back to Osborn’s house and hides the Green Goblin’s equipment. At Norman’s funeral, Harry swears vengeance toward Spider-Man, believing him responsible for killing his father, and asserts that Peter is all he has left. Mary Jane confesses to Peter she is in love with him, but Peter, feeling that he must protect her from the unwanted attentions of Spider-Man’s enemies, hides his true feelings and tells her that they can only be friends. As Peter leaves the funeral, he recalls Ben’s words about responsibility, and accepts his new life as Spider-Man.

PROS:

• Tobey Maguire! I’m sorry, but with all due respect to Andrew Garfield, this guy IS Peter Parker! He’s such amazing dork! Some folks criticize the movie for failing to make the dorkiness more charming, but that’s the point! He’s a socially awkward super nerd! Peter Parker has always been a surrogate for the audience who loves him, other nerds, he’s never meant to be who we wish we were as Peter, in fact his entire point has always been out of the costume he pretty much is us… Minus the fact that he managed to score with two women more gorgeous than any of us could ever aspire to date.
  
  Now who here thinks they could ever date someone as attractive as these two? Yeah, I don’t think so.
• Kirsten Dunst as Mary-Jane. Now before we get into why she’s a pro here, let’s talk about something else real quick. Mary-Jane and Gwen Stacy, and many of Peter’s other love interests were created in the 1960’s. These characters were not intended to be actual characters at the time of their creation, they were created to be love interests because if you didn’t have a female character in superhero comics, morons would assume said superhero is gay and throw a fit and get your book banned, and also because the old white guys who were writing the girls didn’t know a damn thing about how to write women who weren’t love interests. So that being said, these characters weren’t that important when they were created, over time writers have tried to add to their characters retroactively to limited success. Sometimes it worked, others… Well…. Not so much… But regardless, when Sam Raimi and writer, David Koepp, decided to add to MJ’s story by saying she comes from a family who frequently argues and a father that outright calls her worthless as she’s starting to walk to school, some folks were pissed that they took such a deliberate liberty. I call bullshit. They didn’t take liberties with the character, they made a character. Raimi and Koepp weren’t working from the modern comics at the time, they were working from the classic Stan Lee-Steve Ditko books that they’d both grown up on. An issue I’ve always taken with comic book fans who complain about superhero movies is how they always focus on the superficial details and not “Does it work with the story they’re telling and does it do justice to the thing I love?” MJ in the 60’s was just a sexy ass broad who Peter managed to score a date with, here she’s a girl who comes from a difficult home life but does her best to smile about it anyway. She won’t take people’s bullshit outside her home life because she get’s enough of that at home. Take for example the early scene where the bus refuses to stop for Peter, everyone but MJ is just laughing their ass of at this poor nerd running like hell to catch up screaming at them to please stop already, MJ quickly decides enough is enough and runs right to driver and tells him to let him on already. And in my opinion, Kirsten nails that! You see why Peter is so in love with her, but you also see her genuine faults, while she’s able and willing to stand up to bullies she has a bit of a problem with seeing things through a somewhat childish lens. She was great, the character was great, and if you disagree, you can eat me.
  
  
  
  Or you could just acknowledge that while you disagree with my opinion, I’m entitled to it and move on with your life, that’s cool too.
• I have no defined opinion of James Franco as an actor, I think he’s a talented guy who does a good work all the time, but I’ve never see him do anything particularly great. I feel weird about the guy because all I can really think of with him is Harry Osborn despite the fact that he’s clearly moved on from the role. But regardless, he does some really good work here. I also like the chemistry he and Tobey have, you can tell that these are two guys who genuinely care about one another, but Harry’s so selfish and egocentric that he legitimately makes Peter question why he still hangs out with this guy. You can tell also that he really respects and admires his father, but you get the impression it’s less because of what his father does for him or just plain what he does for a living, and more just because “He’s my father.” You especially get that in the scene where he just got done arguing with Norman about the fact that he’s leaving right when they’re about to have Thanksgiving Dinner which he specifically invited him to so he could introduce him to his girlfriend (Mary-Jane), when Norman tells him that she’s likely using him for his money and leaves, MJ tells Harry his father is a creep. Harry yells at her saying that his father is a great man and he’ll be lucky if ever becomes a fraction of what he was. This is a guy who is clearly delusional, which becomes even more apparent in the sequels.
• Willem Dafoe. Now I’m certain this is the point we all can agree on. Willem Dafoe+Anything=Awesome. I can’t think of a single role I’ve seen him where I disliked him. I think my least favorite role of his I’ve seen is in American Psycho, and even then he’s plenty likable, he just doesn’t have a lot to do make a ton of impact. Not so here my dear mother bitches. You know how some actors do well in a superhero movie, but you get the odd feeling that they really don’t give a shit about the project? Yeah, not Dafoe, the guy gives so much to this character! A lot of actors who play super villains kick ass in the role, but something I feel a lot of them fail to do, is make the character a human being. Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull? Great, but not human. Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky? Good, but not great. Tom Hardy as Bane? An excellent try, a near hit, but still a miss. I feel like a lot of actors may not have been thinking about Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn, but I think some of them may have been indirectly inspired by him. I’m not sure we would’ve gotten Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, or Heath Ledger’s Joker, or Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier without Dafoe as the Green Goblin. He’s delightfully creepy in the moments where he’s playing the goblin, but he also has some great human moments here. Like the scene where he’s talking to himself in the mirror, he seems genuinely horrified at the prospect of what’s going on. “I’m losing my mind, and I may have committed not only murder, but outright terrorist attacks… Oh my God, what have I done?” Also, here’s an awesome detail, Dafoe did 90% of the stunts and costume work for the character. In fact he outright insisted upon it because he didn’t think a stuntman could do what needed to be done for the character. Godspeed Willem Dafoe!
• Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris as Uncle Ben and Aunt May! You know what’s great about casting actors who have never been big stars? The fact that when you see the movie, you don’t see well known iconic and talented actors slipping into these excellent roles, you just see these characters existing on the big screen. And both brilliantly convey what needs to be conveyed with these two. They feel like an old married couple, they look like an old married couple, they act like an old married couple. And they both come off like actual parents! Think about it, these two have pretty much raised this kid from the time he was at least four years old! These two have more claim to title of parent of Peter Parker than the actual people who conceived him. And it really feels that way!
• Another criticism of this series in general is all the crying Tobey tends to do… He literally only cries twice in this movie. And I love both of those scenes. Why? Well because in the first scene, he’s crying because he just saw his father die right in front of him.
  
  
  
  Look at this guy’s face, there is no vanity here! There is only a boy grieving over his lost daddy. Why do people mock this scene? This is Tobey showing that he will not react with just a casual “Sexy Cry” as the Nostalgia Critic once put it, he will actually put his soul into a scene that requires lots of emotional acting. And it’s absolutely perfect. The other scene where he cries? He’s just graduated and he’s thinking about the fact that because he was a selfish ass his uncle didn’t get to see him wear his cap and gown and accept his diploma, and the next moment after that is when he decides, I have great power, and I have a responsibility. It shows off this character’s incredible guilt. And guess what? Like it or not, Spider-Man’s entire motivation isn’t responsibility, it’s fucking GUILT! He feels so guilty for letting his uncle down, that he will stop at nothing to let no one else down, and at the same time let’s everyone down only contributing to his massive guilt.
• A big reason why people tend to dislike Spidey, and superheroes in general really, is that they always try to maintain a relationship with their significant other while at the same time refusing to tell them who they really are. Lying to your partner is not a good thing, relationships are built on trust, so these days most superhero movies opt to just say “Fuck it, let’s have the guy tell her the truth.” But that runs into the issue of, well in the event the bad guys find out who the hero really is, aren’t the significant others the first ones who will be harmed? This movie opts to just have Peter say, “I can’t be with you.” And you realize that MJ gets the impression there’s something Peter isn’t telling her about why he won’t be with her, and you also realize that Peter is just kicking himself for this. This is the girl he’s longed for since Elementary School who is telling him to his face, “I want to be with you Peter Parker.” Ideally they’d be running to whoever’s house was closer and getting into bed with each other. But this isn’t the ideal scenario, Peter now has the responsibility to help people, and having MJ would only put her in danger, so he has to tell her “I can’t be with you. I’m sorry.” That’s fucking awesome.
• JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jamieson. If you’ve seen any of the Raimi trilogy you’ll know what I’m talking about. Hell, there’s a good reason why Marc Webb and company have not dared to try and tackle this guy. It’s not even like JK’s playing the character or just embodies the character perfectly, it’s like the guy literally jumped out of the comics and became living flesh and blood!
  

CONS:

• The fights are well done and memorable, but they’re nothing that special from an aesthetic or visual standpoint. The good stuff really doesn’t happen until the next two movies in my opinion.
• I feel like they could’ve done the makeup a little better for the younger actors, you can tell they’re not really high school aged and that kinda bugs a bit, but not enough to really ruin the movie.
• I know we’re supposed to think the guy who gives Peter the money for wrestling is a douchebag, but he’s kind of an unrealistic douchebag. A guy comes into the ring who bests a guy no one else could beat in less time than expected, and he not only pays him less but pays considerably less. The ad said $3000 dollars for 3 minutes, Peter beats Bonesaw in 2 minutes and he only get a hundred bucks for his trouble? I get that the guy thinks he can scam a kid out of the money he earned, but why go that far? This kid just beat up a guy 5 inches taller than him and with muscles the size of his head, and you’re about to tempt fate by giving him $100 for a feat that should’ve earned him $3000? Moron.
• While it’s well done, I think the scene where Spidey has to choose between MJ and and the kids in the gondola is a bit contrived. It’s the one time for me where the silliness of the movie kind of annoys me a little, but I can go with it on a stretch.
• Okay, the upside down kiss is arguably one of the most iconic moments of the Spider-Man franchise, not just these movies, Amazing Spider-Man as well, but that being said, I find it hard to believe that a woman who was almost sexually assaulted is going to be so eager to makeout with a masked man. Maybe I’m full of it, but it feels kind of weird to me. Like Peter, this girl was almost raped and your just gonna suck face with her? That doesn’t sound too responsible… Um… Yeah…

So yeah beat for beat, you know damn well why this movie kicked off the superhero movie renaissance and the Marvel Renaissance. Blade set the tinder. X-Men lit the fire. But Spider-Man set the cinemas ablaze with a new found love for the genre! When studio execs walked outside their mansions to get the newspaper off their front porch and saw that this movie had not only done well over the weekend but had crossed the $100 million mark in just three fucking days, they walked back into their home with a large yellow stain on the front of their bathrobe and ordered their butler to clean up the puddle on the front porch while they called their coworkers saying they need to get the rights to another supehero property to now! Without it we have no Nolan Batman, without those two we have no Marvel Cinematic Universe and without those we have nothing but a series of okay to mediocre movies that came out from 2003 to 2007. I’m gonna give Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man a 9 out 10.