Overall, pretty good. I'd give Spider-Man a "thumbs up" if that weren't already trademarked to some other movie critic. It does, however, manage to fall into the same trap that most comic book superhero movies fall into: it tries to cram two movies into one film. The first movie is the story of how Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man, and the second is his battle with the Green Goblin. The result is that neither story is allowed enough time to be developed as fully as it deserves to be. The first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve handled this even worse than Spider-Man does, while the first X-Men movie did manage to integrate the two movies better than either of them (and was the first ever comic book movie to treat the source material with the respect it deserves, as does Spider-Man here). The first Batman avoided this trap entirely by assuming that we all know who Batman is and skipping the origin story, except for a brief flashback (of course, I liked the Batman movies the least of any of these but for other reasons).

In Spider-Man's case, I would have liked to have seen more scenes of Peter learning to use his new superpowers instead of having him quickly go from a clumsy first attempt to being fully proficient. There should also have been more time devoted to building the relationships between Peter and Mary Jane, Peter and Harry, Mary Jane and Harry, Harry and his father, etc. The "soap" elements of the plot concerning who's in love with whom versus who's dating whom would have felt more real then, rather than being gratuitously tacked on just so the filmmakers could say, "See, we've got character development too!" As for the second story, I really liked the Jekyll&Hyde thing they were going for with Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin, but, again, not enough time was spent with Osborn's "Jekyll" side learning about and trying to deal with his "Hyde" activities for him to become the really cool, post-Hannibal Lecter, psychologically deranged yet oddly sympathetic villain that he could have been. Nor is any time devoted to exploring what the Goblin's long term agenda is. He acts as an agent of chaos and terror, but why? Aside from getting revenge on the board members who screwed him (and he does this pretty quickly), is it money, power, fame, world domination? Why does he want Spider-Man to join him? To be the kind of son Harry never was? And why does Harry go from resenting his father to swearing vengeance against his father's killer (besides the obvious sequel potential it promises)? A much longer running time or two separate movies would have been able to deal with these issues.

Let the nitpicking begin!

• Spider-Man has many similarities to the first and second Superman movies with Christopher Reeve, and I'm not sure whether I should cry homage or rip-off. Obviously, there are several elements of the Spider-Man mythos that were taken directly from the Superman mythos (bespectacled nerd with dead parents hides his superpowered identity and works for a metropolitan newspaper) that I can overlook because they pre-existed the movie, but what about these: Before anyone in the city knows that Superman/Spider-Man exists, Lois Lane/Mary Jane finds herself in peril, dangling from a tall building. Clark Kent/Peter Parker happens to be passing by on the street below and sees the danger. He runs toward the camera and pulls open his shirt to reveal the Superman/Spider-Man costume beneath. After this first rescue, we get a montage of scenes that show Superman/Spider-Man beginning his career of fighting crime. In another scene, Clark Kent/Peter Parker enters the newspaper office to get a job, and Perry White/J. Jonah Jameson is in the middle of an angry rant. The battle with General Zod/the Green Goblin reaches a point where things look hopeless for Superman/Spider-Man, but then the people of Metropolis/New York come to his rescue. The ending shows Superman/Spider-Man carrying/swinging past an American flag as he flies over/swings through the planet/city he is dedicated to protect with a promise of many sequels. You be the judge. On a related note: both this film and Speed 2: Cruise Control feature Willem Defoe as a genius who gets screwed over by a big corporation, goes insane, and plots a violent revenge against both the company and many innocent bystanders using high-tech equipment.

• The special effects were really good. Spider-Man's wallcrawling and webswinging always looked fine in his many animated incarnations but terrible in his one live action television series. I wasn't sure if this was due to the limits of budget and special effects technology when that series was made or if our intuitive awareness of the physical laws of motion and the series failure to conform to them prevented us from being able to believe such things in a real world setting. Every movie that has ever attempted flying scenes, including the Superman movies, Spielberg's Hook, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, have always looked horribly fake because the characters didn't seem to be moving through the air the way our instincts told us they should be. Here, however, they seem to have gotten the physics as well as Spider-Man's body language while doing it just right. There's only one scene that looks phony - when Spider-Man is fighting a bunch of guys and jumps from one to the other - and, for some reason, this is the scene that the studio gave to the critics to show on their television reviews. Go figure. The Green Goblin's glider is a little less successful - especially while hovering - but still ok. Maybe it was to Spider-Man's advantage, in terms of believability, that he was swinging rather than actually flying.

• It's a shame that both Spider-Man and the Green Goblin are given costumes that rob the actors of the ability to use their faces. In Spider-Man's case, it was unavoidable because this is what his costume is supposed to look like, but, since the Green Goblin's costume was being changed from the comic book version anyway, why handicap Willem Defoe too? Maybe they did this so that it would be harder for us to tell when the actor was being replaced by his computer generated double. Faces are usually the dead giveaway in cgi scenes. Speaking of faces, Spider-Man's chin doesn't move under his cloth mask when he talks, and it looks weird - unless maybe they tried it with a moving chin, and it looked even weirder.

• I was a bit put off by the somewhat downbeat ending. After the really great rescue of the tram car with the New Yorkers' help - a scene that takes on an additional emotional resonance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks with the people of New York City being able to fight back (what can I say? I'm a sucker for the sentimental) - the death of Norman Osborn and subsequent funeral scene where Peter finally wins but is forced to reject Mary Jane's love was a bit more of a bummer than what I'd hope for in an escapist summer blockbuster. I guess I'll have the sequels to console me.

• The portrayal of newspaper editor, J. Jonah Jameson, in the comic has varied over the years - from comical to serious - depending on who was writing it. At his best, he is a man of great journalistic integrity who hates Spider-Man (and all superheroes) for some very valid reasons: he disapproves of "costumed vigilantes" taking the law into their own hands as well as the damage to property and danger to bystanders that occurs whenever the superheroes and supervillains fight each other in the city streets, not to mention that the mere presence of the heroes in the city seems to be what attracts the villains in the first place. The movie, however, goes for the comic Jonah - which isn't too bad - but it also portrays him as a sleazy, tabloid journalist who's willing to print anything just to sell papers.

• I would have loved there to be a scene where Mary Jane says, "Face it tiger, you've just hit the jackpot." It was one of the most famous moments in the history of the comic. [For the uninformed among you: Aunt May tells Peter that the daughter(niece?) of an old friend of hers is coming to visit and asks Peter to show her around the city. Peter fears the worst about this potential blind date and goes to a lot of trouble to avoid meeting her. Finally, Aunt May manages a surprise meeting, and we get a full-page picture of this gorgeous redhead, fully aware of why Peter's been avoiding her, saying "Face it tiger, you've just hit the jackpot."] Obviously, the backstory given to Mary Jane in this movie prevents this sequence from being able to take place, but it would have been fun for the line to have been inserted into some other context as an inside reference.

• Some fans have objected to Spider-Man's webshooters, which were mechanical devices invented by Peter in the comic, being changed to a biological part of his spider-powers in the movie. In fact, there was a fan ranting about it in the comic shop I was in just the other day. (... um ... I was just getting some change for the payphone right outside ... really ... ). I think the movie version actually makes more sense even though it's kind of icky when you think about it. They're already asking us to suspend our disbelief about the superpowers. The idea that even a really bright teenager could come up with that kind of technology might be pushing things a little too far. And as for objecting to a genetically engineered spider rather than a radioactive spider, oh get a li- ... no, I won't say it. So long as we're getting picky, what about Gwen Stacy, and why does Spider-Man hyphenate his name when all the other superheroes don't?

• And the winner in the category of Most Blatant Product Placement by a Soda Can goes to ... Dr. Pepper! Previous winners have included the Coke can in Independence Day. Keep up the good work.

In short, a definite go-see, but I'm not sure if it will hold up for multiple viewings.

Guide for parents: probably not good for younger kids. The Green Goblin has several scary scenes, and the climactic fight between him and Spider-Man gets brutally violent. Mary Jane shows a lot of cleavage and has a "wet tee-shirt" type moment.

Links: Official Movie Website, Official Comics Website, and Internet Movie Database Entry