It's possible the first X-men movie may have come out before this, making it the starting point of the latest Super Hero obsession in Hollywood, but I don't care enough to look it up, and considering the fact that Blade came out in the 90's, and Superman was huge in the 70's, it doesn't even matter. Regardless, Spider-man was a big deal when it came out, and was a lot better than stupid X-men, which is a pretty boring movie if you go back to watch it, that helped cement "dorky" super heroes as a marketable franchise while being critically hailed. As a big fan of both Spider-man and Sam Raimi, I was extremely excited to see it opening night, and since I was actually in High School at the time and could fully identify with Peter Parker's story, it left a pretty sizable impression on me. The class loser problem, the crush on the pretty girl that will never be returned problem, the ability to climb up walls problem. All staples of whats its like growing up, which is what led to the comic being popular for like a 100 years in the first place.
Though the effects and story telling may not match up with the more recent efforts in the genre by comparison, its hard to argue this movies achievement in defining the genre. Still, some problems still exist, such as the stories lack of re-watchablity, mainly on account of it being an origin story, the melodramatic love triangle, and Tobey Maguire as Spider-man.The Green Goblin custom didn't really help either, and it's not like you didn't always know what was going to happen next.
What kind of dumb name is Tobey?
With all that said, I've probably seen it a million times, that most likely
being the real reason I can't sit through it in one watching anymore
(making my previous statement bullshit) and years of watching day time
television and Hong Kong movies has made it easier to stomach melodrama.
But Tobey Maguire is still really hard to buy as Spider-man, though I
guess its not impossible if you don't think about how much better pretty
much anyone else would have been. In the end Raimi's direction gives
the movie a lot of heart, and, in the end, it gives the movie a feeling
of being a classic. Or maybe that's just because I saw it in high
school.
Then Spider-man 2 came out and everyone thought it was the best superhero movie ever, until X-men 2 came out, if it hadn't already (X-men 2 was amazing). Building on the conclusion of the last movie, with the will-they-won't-they relationship of Pete and Mary Jane, the fact that Harry thinks Spider-man killed his dad for no reason, and the whole J. Jonah Jameson hating Spider-man thing, this movie hits the ground running. Actually it doesn't. I should have said swinging, but it doesn't do either. Though this may be me always having to find something wrong to complain about in every movie other people like, I remember having a lot of problems with this movie, despite actually enjoying it. So while it's probably better than the first one, the action is awesome, I remember being somewhat indifferent towards it.
So it should have hit the ground running, but instead opens with Spider-man saying "Hi, I'm Spider-man" and then punches us in the face with example after example of ways Peter Parker is a useless human being. He looses his job, he can't pay the rent, he's about to flunk out of school, Mary Jane is going to marry some other guy, Harry hates Spider-man, Bruce Campbell won't let him see Mary Jane's play, he can't get a single thing to eat at a fancy party, and also his powers stop working for pretty much no reason. Also the bad guy is really a nice guy that turns bad probably because Peter jinxed him. Also also J. Johan still hates his guts. So he quits. What a great movie.
No one likes this movie. Like X-men last stand, the third of this trilogy is pretty well known for coming off the tracks in such a disastrous wreck that it fucked up the whole franchise. With X-men they decided to just start making prequels, but this piece of crap lead them to just reboot the whole series from scratch. And it probably would have been a shock if not for the fact that this movie was so dumb, making us not really care about such a weird move.
The problem with the movie supposedly came from the studio, surprise surprise, wanting to cram venom into the movie, which Raimi didn't like until later when he did because he didn't really have a choice I guess. So we have 3 bad guys, with Harry becoming the new Goblin, Venom randomly coming from the sky randomly, and randomly having some random convict get completely weird random sand powers. There's just TOO MANY BAD GUYS, guys! The weird part is that Sam actually wanted stupid Sandman in the movie and had to be convinced to shoehorn Venom. The movie ends up being a clusterfuck of nothing really being important on account of so much going on, but I can't help but feel that the "dark Spider-man" story line was the only thing giving the movie a purpose, despite how cheesy it was done, like we needed more angst, while the Sandman story was completely pointless and way out of whack with the reality the previous movies had established. Harry as Goblin mock II was pretty sweet though. I think his fight with Peter is one of the best in the series, probably because they had been building up to it through the first two movies. Too bad it ends with Harry getting dumb plot convenient amnesia. His story then becomes pointless, Sandman all of a sudden becomes a big deal because they retcon it to him being the one that killed uncle ben before he becomes pointless, and then Venom really never has a point to begin with. The story just isn't there.
Why's he so broody anyways? He gets to be Spider-man.
You have one thread that is the end of a character's entire arc through out the last 2 movies that has to serve as the beginning and then put on hold, some random occurrence where "something" falls from outer space and makes the main character a dickhead for half the movie before becoming a different character, the same melodrama with Mary Jane now that this time she's the one down on her luck so now they can't be together, and the most random story of some guy we just shouldn't care about who is written in in such a clumsy way that it does retro damage to the first movie, all woven into one story.
Overall the first two movies are seen as classics, although I never agreed that the second one was the best. They were an important part of bringing superhero movies up into the light to be seen as blah blah the third one ruined it... surprise surprise...
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