**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, Jimmy Franco, and Bill Nunn
Directed by Sam Raimi & written by David Koepp, from the comic book by Stan Lee
2002 PG13
Most Over-Rated Movie 2002
Around the halfway point of “Spider-Man” comes a scene of amazing hilarity, in which Bill Nunn makes one of two appearances as the quintessential newspaper editor. He’s a complete sleaze, yelling at his subordinates and into his phone and hanging up on his wife, with a rat-tat-tat delivery like a nightmare you might have after watching Cary Grant in “His Girl Friday.” He’s a complete caricature. More of “Spider-Man” really should have been like him, but it isn’t. “Spider-Man” has some jokes but it doesn’t have much of a sense of humor about itself. It begs comparison to Tim Burton’s “Batman,” if for no other reason than because both movies have nearly identical soundtracks, and since “Batman” back in 1989, most good comic book movies have been aware of and cheerful about their absurdities. Even “The Crow” (1994), set in a city of nonstop gloom, knew that its endless night wasn’t to be taken entirely seriously. But the mad scientists in “Spider-Man” aren’t quite mad enough, the gothic mansion isn’t gothic enough, and the villain’s diabolical masterplan is basically to not get fired from his day job.
Places where genre-poking humor could have been useful are overlooked and played straight. “Spider-Man” features two houses with windows directly across from each other in at least two rooms so that Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) can look into each other’s lives. This is the kind of design architects are paid to avoid and are seldom found off the silver screen. Would it have been so hard to find some way, however subtle, to pull a gag out of this? Or how about the thugs who look almost exactly like comic book villains, with black wool caps, and almost down to black eye masks like we used to wear when we went trick-or-treating? There’s a top that “Spider-Man” could have gone over, but never really does; everything is exactly what it seems to be. Kirsten Dunst in a soaking wet shirt with no bra on really is just a hot chick pandered in a soaking wet shirt and no bra.
The cleverest thing about “Spider-Man” is how it treats Parker’s transformation into the Friendly Neighborhood Webslinger as an exaggerated part of puberty. He stalks off sullenly to his bedroom with nary a word to his aunt and uncle, he makes lots of racket and then asks to be left alone, and, of course, the web-fluid he uses to swing from building to building bares a non-accidental similarity to another white substance that has plagued mankind since the first adolescence. I also like the way the movie begins in high school, when Mary Jane is too cool to be good friends with Peter. When the story moves out of high school and, even though Peter stays the same, the definition of cool is different, Mary Jane becomes his friend. Watching “Spider-Man” I was dimly reminded of how liberating the transition from high school to college is.
“Spider-Man” barely scratches the surface of what could have been done with these ideas, and instead marches along from one plot point to the next. The bulk of the movie is perfunctory and expository, like a list of events anyone faintly aware of the Spider-Man comics should already know. “Attack of the Clones” has the same problem, although “Spider-Man” is livelier, and the screenplay by David Koepp (the first two “Jurassic Parks,” “Panic Room,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Carlito’s Way”) gives the characters more room to breathe, even while packing everything in with amazing economy.