Naturally with the release of 'The Amazing Spider-Man' on the 3/7/12, what better way to start off the week then by watching the original 2002 film by Sam Raimi, starring Tobey Maquire as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Willem Dafoe as Normal Osbourne/ The Green Goblin, James Franco as Harry Osbourne and Kirsten Dunst as Mary-Jane Watson. This movie was stuck in development hell for 25 years! It's surprising that it could survive that long without going into production, but finally the film was licensed for world wide release by Sony Pictures Entertainment in 1999.
To me this is still one of the greatest superhero movies ever, it was the forerunner up until 2008 with the release of 'Iron Man', (you can argue that DC gave it a tough run with 'Batman Begins' in 2005), then Marvel went crazy and started releasing dozens of high quality superhero films. Maquire is brilliant as Spider-Man and Dafoe is also really good as The Green Goblin. The stories good, the effects are good (some look a bit outdated now, but mostly it still looks believable) and the acting's decent all round. The main complaints people had with this movie is the change of The Green Goblin's costume. Dafoe didn't want his character to look like a cartoon, so they designed a realistic, modern flight suit and helmet for him, a lot of comic book fans didn't like the change, saying that they should stayed loyal to the source material (personally I liked it, I think it was a smart movie). Another complaint (again from comic book fans) was the fact that Spider-Man shot web naturally from his wrist rather than from a home made web shooter, again I think this was a smart decision, critics liked the change. It will be interesting to see the web shooters in 'The Amazing Spider-Man' (I bet they didn't just do that to keep it different from Raimi's trilogy, anyone else thinking of merchandise?)
'Spider-Man' is the biggest competition for 'The Amazing Spider-Man', forget about 'The Avengers Assemble' because it will never beat that, it might have a chance at beating 'The Dark Knight Rises' due to the fact that it isn't it 3D. The original film is the biggest competition because that is what everybody will be comparing this film to, everybody has high expectations of it, especially since it has been announced that a sequel to 'The Amazing Spider-Man is due to come out in 2014, so Sony must have faith in it. From what I've heard, the reboot is as far away from the original film that it possibly can be, and that makes me interested.
So before you go and see 'the Amazing Spider-Man, watch the original, you could even go as far as watching 'Spider-Man 2' (2004) and 'Spider-Man 3' (2007) because all in all the trilogies good, just concludes badly at the end of the third film. Even if you're not planning to see the reboot, if you have the time this week, watch 'Spider-Man', it's a strong film with good action and a moving story. A 8.5/10 from me.All I wanted from it was a bit more action scenes with The Green Goblin.
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