Film Deserves more credit than it gets
Nowadays, the Raimi Spider-Man films are treated as such: "Nothing like the comics!" "Cheesy!" "Emo!" "Tobey was a whiny crybaby!" As an avid Spider-Man reader, I didn't understand where all this was coming from. A new movie came out so all the old ones suck? Over time, I began to doubt and attribute my love of these to mere nostalgia.
Then I rewatched the first one.
Tobey Maguire plays an awesome Peter Parker. He's awkward, nervous and not comfortable in his own skin. People say he never got out of that awkward nerd state but he does. He goes from following MJ mumbling to himself about what he would say to cracking jokes, smiling and being more relaxed around her. His powers give him some confidence, but he's not an entirely different person, which is as it should be. He also plays a good Spider-Man. A common gripe is him not joking every second, and yes in costume Peter can be a motor mouth, but people tend to forget there are plenty of fights where he isn't grinning and laughing all the time. More importantly, quality trumps quantity here. When this Spidey quips, it works. And he cries in situations that make sense for the story, like Ben's death. Is Spidey not allowed to be human?
Kirsten Dunst plays Mary Jane as a little less unattainable supermodel and a little more conventional beauty and down to Earth. She's the typical girl next door but her performance makes it clear she has more depth than she lets on. I also appreciate one of the better romances I've seen in films. Rather than liking Peter because he's reasonably attractive and a male, like most films today, she loves him because he's the only one in her life that supports her and likes her for herself. The audience watches the attraction grow through talking, instead of them just staring at each other.
The rest of the cast do a great job. May and Ben are perfect, J.K. Simmons IS Jameson, Willem Dafoe is appropriately scary as the Goblin and James Franco sells an emotionally confused Harry. The action is great, though the CGI shows some age, and the score is phenomenal.
I would encourage others to look past webshooters and Gwen Stacy. You'll find a great hero film, one of the better ones. It does the character justice. I would say it's better nowadays because it isn't following the gritty trend. It remembers that superheroes can be FUN while still being serious.
Film An Inimitable Classic
I love this movie. I haven’t read the comics but I honestly find the idea that you need to have to have read the comics to have an opinion on a superhero movie to be a ludicrous one.
I know a lot of people dislike this film for having used Dawson Casting. I honestly don’t care about that at all. Grease has actors who are way too old to be in high school graduating from high school. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has a 25 year old play the 16 year old Tom the Dark Lord. Did anyone who watched Sky High actually believe that Will Stronghold was 14. Maybe you’re also bothered by those but I’m not. In the slightest.
Or that Joe Mangianello doesn’t play Flash Thompson all that well, which is true but the way I see it the bully is more a plot device than he is a character. And he works in that capacity in a way that neither Zylka or Revolori did. (In terms of acting Revolori is the best one).
I also know that Mary-Jane Watson is criticized for being unintentionally unsympathetic and I actually agree with that critique in the sequels but not in this movie.
So, I like Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker and I like his character arc. I like how Peter starts off as a nerd who is constantly bullied by his peers and how it brings a certain pathos to his character and how it seems to have a certain level of impact on him as revealed by the small detail of “I hunch”. I like how he goes from “I know I’m not your father, then stop pretending to be” to “I had a father, his name was Ben Parker”. I like how he goes from “I missed the part where that was my problem” to with great power comes great responsibility.” I like how in the beginning, virtually everything he does is to win over MJ but in the end he decides to reject her affections to keep her safe and experiences a sense of tragedy as a result of so doing.
I like the Jerkass Woobie Norman Osborne. I find his origin story sympathetic and I like how he is horrified by the Green Goblin and how Goblin articulates his motive as “to say the things you won’t. To do the things you can’t” and how his sanity slippage is expressed through deliberate motive decay.
I both like and sympathize with Harry Osborne (played wonderfully by James Franco. )
I also like Mary-Jane Watson. I know people say she’s just a Damsel in Distress but when she’s mugged by people who clearly intend to engage in a special kind of evil, she tries to fight them off but loses thanks to there being several of them and her not having powers hence her needing Peter to rescue her leading to the immortal kissing scene. And needing to be rescued isn’t a sign of weakness considering the scene towards the end when Peter needs the people of New York to come to his aid. Also unlike other LoveInterest characters in the Spider-Man movies, she actually makes sense as a Love Interest for him. Seriously the tour guide says there are sixteen spiders and she immediately notices that there are only 15 and she’s the one who’s actually interested in Peter’s fun facts about Spiders. And she’s the only one who consistently objects to the others’ treatment of Peter. After she’s nearly killed and saved by Spider-Man she realizes Peter is the one who was always there for her leading to her confessing her affections for him only to be rejected. The fact it’s at a cemetery is weird but the fact that she started to think about who in her life was really important to her after a near death experience makes sense and it’s entirely possible she thought she’d never bring herself to confess her affections to him if she didn’t immediately.
I do acknowledge that there were some corny elements in the film (like the scene where GG turns his victims straight to skeletons) but all in all, it’s a great movie. And I honestly don’t think that a single superhero has ever surpassed it in my estimation (including SpiderMan2). The Dark Knight is too different for comparison.
So Mr. Raimi, two thumbs up