As we wait for the release of Tom Hardy’s take on infamous Spidey villain/antihero Venom, Greg D Smith takes the opportunity to revisit the Sony-driven big screen iterations of New York’s favourite wall crawler, and re-evaluate their place in the lexicon of modern superhero movies. In release order as usual, today he looks at 2002’s Sam Raimi/Toby Maguire vehicle, to see if it’s really as good as you might remember.

When young science geek student Peter Parker is bitten by a genetically engineered super spider, he finds himself transformed into a superhuman hero. But can he wield his new-found powers for good? Can he juggle real life with his new calling, and how many of those close to him will get hurt by the choices he makes?

There’s one thing about Spider-Man that hits you in the face right off the bat – its colour palette. Saturated in bright, bold colours, the screen fairly pops with the images that it presents, and for a movie that’s now over a decade and a half old and was utilising a fair amount of cutting-edge CGI to implement some of its more ambitious scenes, it’s held up surprisingly well.

There’s a bravery to those visual choices that’s perhaps difficult to appreciate in the age of the MCU, where nineteen (and counting) movies have given us superheroes in glorious colour ranging from slightly de-saturated hyper-realism to neon-drenched insanity by way of magic, space aliens and cosmic stones. Looking at it now, Raimi’s entry would actually sit rather well – from a visual standpoint – with the MCU stable of today. But what must be borne in mind is how gunshy studios were of such aesthetic at the time. It was only five short years after the disastrous box office and reviews of the risible Batman & Robin. Superheroes, when they were allowed anywhere near the big screen – now had to be darker, edgier and more ‘grounded’. See Bryan Singer’s treatment of the X-Men in his 2000 movie, wherein a colourful cast of characters with unique skills and visual signatures were blended into a uniform bunch clad in black leather and snarking their way through each scene as the grappled with world-changing events. The X-Men have always been political – the inspiration of the civil rights movement and its leaders never exactly hidden from audiences – but they also inhabited a fantastical world full of amazing characters in the comics and cartoons which did not follow them onto Singer’s set. Spider-Man – by any rational studio assessment at the time – should not have worked.

But work it does, right from the opening scenes where we get to meet our hero Peter Parker. This isn’t a billionaire with nightmares, nor an alien from another planet, but a simple schoolboy (or just pre-college aged boy in this iteration) who’s struggling with the sort of things that any similar awkward teenager might – well-meaning and loving but slightly overbearing guardians, avoiding getting his ass kicked at school by the bullies, catching the bus on time and not dying of embarrassment every time he sees the girl next door with whom he’s been in love since they were little. Early on, Raimi sets out his stall for this one – this is a movie that understands its source material, even as it deviates from it, creating a hero who confronts problems which – while seeming to take up the whole world from his own perspective – actually matter very much less in the grand scheme of things.

Even the coincidental nature of the movie’s main big bad being the father of his best friend is forgivable on several counts, though mainly because of just how well the Norman Osborn/Green Goblin character is written and portrayed. It works because of the way in which the movie approaches it – not making either the genesis or motivation of the other as had often been the case since Burton’s reinvigoration of the genre in 1989’s Batman – but simply having two separate journeys which inevitably come to clash due partly to the proximity the two share in their relationships and partly to the nature of each one’s journey.

Maguire shines as Parker, creating (unwittingly I’m sure) the tradition of comic book movie leads getting shredded for their roles. I wonder how much thought stars like Paul Rudd and Chris Pratt have given to this fact. Maguire’s physical transformation for the role – quite unusual for the genre at the time, which had tended to rely on costumes, makeup and even different actors (Incredible Hulk) for such conceits – may not be as extreme as some of his later genre stablemates, but it can’t be denied that it’s a trend he seems to have begun.

But what really nails the part on for him is the fact that Raimi’s script never allows the physical transformation to impact the actual character of Peter. In fact, the few times when Peter does try to live up to his new found physicality and capability with a matched level of cockiness, the film slaps him back down again. Beating up Flash Thompson sees him viewed askance by Mary Jane and lectured by Uncle Ben with those famous words. Deciding to allow an armed robber to escape as a spiteful comeback to a man who he sees as having screwed him out of money leads directly to the death of Uncle Ben. Peter is taught humility on a small scale – not needing to fail at saving the world or see scores of people die or suffer as a result of his own hubris. The pain of Aunt May not seeing her husband come home, the look of scared uncertainty in Mary Jane’s eyes as she looks at him – these are the swords which wound Peter the deepest, and ensure that he will try and live up to his powers, rather than find himself dragged down by them.

That theme is a constant one in the movie as well – that as much as Peter’s new powers grant him the ability to be stronger, faster, better and able to help others, they are at one and the same time a gift and a curse. The movie actually has him say as much in a closing monologue which perhaps lands a little too heavily on the nose, but to that point it makes its point in slightly subtler ways. Spidey is able to save people and do good, but he also hurts people in the process. He balances his desire to use his great power responsibly with his need to protect those he loves, and he’s not always successful, especially in the brave ending that the film decides to give him.

Ably matching Maguire is Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn/Green Goblin. Often derided by critics as an over the top, even campy performance, I think a lot of people fail to look past the bright green costume and the orange ‘pumpkin’ bombs to the striking performance beneath. Osborn is not a good man – he’s driven, ambitious and ruthless. But he also genuinely loves his son, Harry. He wants the best for him and recognises that Peter helps him to be better. He also has genuine respect for Peter himself.

Balanced against that is his darker side. Driven out of his own company by a board who want to make a quick buck on a sale and don’t want him weighing them down, it’s understandable that he wants revenge. Unfortunately, having risked his own health by administering his strength serum to himself in a desperate last attempt to prove its worth, he’s struggling a little with impulse control, driven by a dark aspect of his personality which splits off. This is a genuinely interesting take on the comic book movie villain. As I’ve already mentioned, he’s not in any way ‘created’ by Peter/Spider-Man, and the clashes between the two result organically – Goblin goes out to kill people and cause mayhem as an act of revenge against those who have wronged him, and Spidey stands in his way because that’s what a hero does. Sure, there are exaggerated gestures and that distinctive costume but for my money, anyone looking at Green Goblin here and thinking ‘camp’ isn’t paying proper attention. The scenes where Osborn/Goblin talk to one another are the best of all – the use of the mirrors to ensure that you have the image of ‘two’ Osborns in shot but only ever the face of one is inspired, helping reinforce the idea that this is an actual conflict going on between warring halves of his psyche. For all that Dafoe brings his usual brand of snarling, loudly physical acting to the Goblin character, there’s equal parts subtlety and humanity to his Osborn, and a fascinating journey as the one starts to consume the other. There’s a discernible difference between Goblin’s slimy attempt at tricking Peter so that he can kill him with the remotely piloted glider and Osborn’s heartfelt final plea that Peter ‘not tell Harry’. I doubt that many actors could have fulfilled the requirements of this particular brief as well.

Of the rest of the cast, J K Simmons often gets mention as bombastic Bugle editor J Jonah Jameson, and it’s true that he obviously relishes in the ability to play someone quite that mean. But again I think what often gets missed here is the nuance. Jameson is a mean, ruthless individual, but that’s not all he is. When he’s meeting with Peter and his staff, he’s conducting the meeting, fighting off his wife’s enquiries via his PA and making editorial decisions on the fly without skipping a beat. Like a spider in the centre of a web (pun intended?) Jameson can feel what’s going on around him and run it accordingly. Though we never see him outside his office, there’s no doubt he knows exactly what’s happening. Moreover, when confronted by the Goblin, he doesn’t give up Peter’s name, despite the fact he easily could. There’s a certain loyalty there which makes no sense if we think of the character as a simple blowhard cowardly bully – it’s not necessarily that he cares about Peter’s fate, maybe it’s just the standard ‘protecting the source’ that any journalist might do, but it gives us a hint at a deeper (albeit still unlikable) character in there.

Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane fares less well. She gives a great performance with what she’s given, but unfortunately what she’s mainly given is the role of ‘trophy the men fight over’. When she’s not being pawed at by Flash as Peter looks mournfully (and ever so slightly creepily) on, she’s being shown off by Harry to his father, or insulted by that same father as a mere gold-digger, or exalted by Aunt May to Peter as a real catch. MJ herself basically just gets to be there, plugging away at a series of auditions that go nowhere and working in a diner to make ends meet. There’s that iconic scene in the alleyway which is what everyone remembers best from the film and which inspired a million parodies, but again consider that scene occurs because Peter fails to ask her out on a date and then Spider-Man has to come to her rescue as she gets pursued by a group of men who the film invites us to assume want to violently rape her. Even in her final scene, she throws herself on Peter having already exhausted the complement of other men the film lined up for her and gets told no. On one hand it’s a brave move for a film in the genre at the time – get the nerd boy to become the hero and then have him refuse to walk off into the sunset with the girl as the credits roll – but on the other it just feels like another slap in the face for Dunst and her character.

James Franco gets perhaps the oddest task of all, being both our hero’s best friend and also an unlikeable ass who treats MJ awfully, sulks when he doesn’t get his way and betrays Peter’s trust yet somehow expects Peter to be there for him. It’s a part that any number of talented character actors might have struggled to navigate and Franco – while doing his best – is not what the part needs. He pulls off the unlikable bit well enough, but the character also needs a certain amount of warmth and humanity to balance it off and leave it in the sweet spot of the audience’s attentions, and unfortunately Franco just can’t deliver.

Arguably the biggest supporting character though, is New York itself. I had forgotten before this re-watch just how vast the landscape is in the movie, and how much of it gets covered. It has to be remembered that the movie was released not long after the horrific September 11, 2001 attacks (indeed, there was a promotional trailer and posters shot which were pulled, featuring as they did the twin towers of the World Trade Centre). What’s interesting here is that the film evokes the spirit and attitude of that time in New York without ever directly referencing it at all. When Spidey is in trouble towards the end of the climactic showdown with the Goblin, it’s the ordinary New Yorkers who step in, throwing rocks and abuse at the villain as they declare that you ‘mess with one of us, you mess with us all.’ It forcibly reminded me of the ‘New York spirit’ we saw so much of in the days following 9/11, and it’s hard to not see it as a deliberate choice. It’s a spirit that very much permeates the movie as a whole too – even at the point where the city believes that Spidey may be a villain, there are still plenty of people willing to stand up for him, and at least one cop willing to let him go and save people rather than try and arrest him. Parker in the comics has always been a favoured son of the Big Apple, and the movie captures that sense well.

Of course, there are changes. Most prominent was Raimi’s decision to have Spidey’s webs be a biological capability rather than fired by a gadget he creates. Many were the voices raised by the comic book-reading community at the time in opposition to this, though in hindsight it’s difficult to really see why. Moving the narrative on somewhat from its slightly passé origins, the spider which grants him his powers is a genetically engineered super spider rather than a radioactive one. It’s one of the few concessions the movie makes to ‘grounding’ the movie and a great example of how to balance that grounding. That it then translates this into Peter shooting webs from his wrist is delightfully silly and wonderfully fitting.

But if there’s one big difference between this and the new wave of genre movies brought forth by the MCU and Fox’s X-Men, it’s the theme of identity. Peter, as he is in the comics, is fiercely protective of his secret identity, preoccupied always with the idea of who might get hurt if his identity were to be revealed (this worry borne out by Goblin’s discovery of his identity and actions in light of that discovery). In the MCU, everyone is just who they are – even Tom Holland’s Peter is found out by May by the end of his first solo feature – and identity is no longer a theme. The DCEU has tried to keep the idea going, but like so many elements it has misunderstood it. It doesn’t really matter in Dawn of Justice whether anyone knows who Superman is because he’s too busy moping about how mean everyone is to him, Wonder Woman just wants to be left alone and Bruce Wayne just doesn’t want to be caught by the authorities. Raimi’s Parker cares about what the cost will be to others if his identity is revealed, not about what might happen to him. He goes out and fights in a mask to protect them, and because it’s the right thing to do, rather than the easier one.

And he isn’t fighting a god, or an alien warlord. He isn’t trying to save the whole world. He’s focused on the smaller picture. He signs notes ‘The Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man’ and in one standout sequence, with explosions all around, the Goblin trying to kill him and the love of his life in mortal danger, he’s focused on one small boy, urging him to move out of the way of falling debris and swooping in to grab him when he doesn’t. Maguire’s Spidey is beset by doubts, but they’re doubts about how to ask out a girl, and what to say to his best friend, and whether or not he can live up to the legacy of the man he spurned in their last worldly exchange. When it comes time to pull on the suit and put himself in harm’s way, there’s not a second of hesitation.

It would be difficult to argue that Spider-Man is the best comic book movie ever made. There are inconsistencies of powers (spidey-sense seems to work when narratively convenient and at no other time), there are some poor character executions and some questionable dialogue choices (including the one which is highlighted a lot on social media these days with Peter attempting to mock a wrestler by asking him if his husband made his outfit). But it would be impossible to argue with the boldness of vision it exhibited for its time, or that it hadn’t served as a touchstone for what the MCU and the genre as a whole would eventually accomplish. For all that Sony get lambasted these days for their treatment of the franchise, there’s an argument that we wouldn’t have the richness of depth and variety we enjoy today in the genre without this movie. They took a great power, and they handled it here (mostly) responsibly.