Spiderman

Went with Bruce, Christy, Mo, Amy, Scoo and Deb.

They changed some bits of the story.  In the original he's prolly mid- to late-20s instead of 17.  A scientist who gets bit in his own lab instead of on a field trip.   He built a device to throw his webs instead of it being a natural ability.   All minor and don't really affect the rest of the story.

In some ways, this was a better comic book adaptation than most.  Obviously, modern special effects let them do pretty much whatever they want.  The newspaper editor played it really well as an overbearing, single-minded, bottom-line man.  When the Wilem Defoe was dressed up as the bad guy, it mostly worked as a comic book character.

But the movie had a bit of a split personality.  Most of the scenes where neither character was in costume were scripted, shot and acted very conventionally.  The relationships were a little too soapy for my tastes, with the best friend stealing the girl he knows the main character likes.  The aunt and uncle were supposed to be simple characters, but came across a bit too one-dimensional.

Being me, I spotted some verisimilitude gaffes.  For example, when he's throwing his web the material has to come from somewhere.  It looked to me like he'd have been sucked dry in a coupla minutes at the rate he was flinging webs around.  Also, the usual super-hero injury inconsistencies.  Sometimes he can get knocked eighty feet against a wall and bounce right back to his feet.  And later he gets thrown five feet and the blow leaves him stunned.

I was terribly disappointed by the unnecessary impaling at the end.  Mo and I both noticed that the way the final attack was arranged, even if it had hit Spiderman as intended it would have impaled the bad guy, too.

On my brother's Total Movie Value Scale, Rental.  Basically, a Saturday morning cartoon stretched into a movie.  Not bad, but I didn't go gaga like some of my friends.

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