Repulsively overhyped comic-book adaptation by Sam Raimi. (How would his lighter and livelier Darkman, of 1990, have been pushed a decade later?) The hype, which naturally took no notice of the actual product and its worth, is as de rigueur as the Danny Elfman musical score and the plasticky, elasticky CG animation. It's just the way this sort of thing is done, and no room to wriggle. Even so, the advance misgivings of Spider-Maniacs over the pivotal casting of sensitive, vulnerable Tobey Maguire (Ride with the Devil, The Cider House Rules) prove to be not unfounded. Yes, yes, the premise of the piece — the boy who gets bitten by a genetically engineered superspider and infected with arachnoid superpowers — is a metaphor of the adolescent-to-adult metamorphosis. And who better than Maguire to bring out the human dimensions of the larval adolescent? Still, the movie lingers so long on the human side of the equation that it might have been better named Peter Parker. It truly is a Tobey Maguire movie more than a comic-book superhero movie. (Marvel of Marvels!) That's not altogether a bad thing in view of the actor's eccentric, ritardando sense of timing and his deadpan talent for hinting at a beehive of interior activity. Yet the urban Tarzan in the spandex bodysuit seems (when he gets the chance) a completely separate entity, a two-dimensional phantom in an alternate universe. And Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, riding a sort of aerial surfboard, makes an unformidable and uninteresting villain: Batman's Joker reupholstered in metallic monochrome. Whatever thunder is available to be stolen is harnessed by J.K. Simmons (memorable as well in Raimi's The Gift and For Love of the Game) as the most jaundiced of yellow journalists. With Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Cliff Robertson, Rosemary Harris. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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