Product Description

Average teenager Peter Parker is transformed into an extraordinary super hero after he is accidentally bitten by a radioactive spider. When his beloved uncle is savagely murdered during a robbery, young Peter vows to use his powers to avenge his death. Deeming himself "Spider-Man ," he sets about ridding the streets of crime, bringing him into conflict with malevolent super-villain "Green Goblin."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2313 in DVD
• Brand: Marvel Kids
• Released on: 2002-11-01
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French, English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, 1.20 pounds
• Running time: 121 minutes

Amazon.com
For devoted fans and nonfans alike, Spider-Man offers nothing less--and nothing more--than what you'd expect from a superhero blockbuster. Having proven his comic-book savvy with the original Darkman, director Sam Raimi brings ample energy and enthusiasm to Spidey's origin story, nicely establishing high-school nebbish Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) as a brainy outcast who reacts with appropriate euphoria--and well-tempered maturity--when a "super-spider" bite transforms him into the amazingly agile, web-shooting Spider-Man. That's all well and good, and so is Kirsten Dunst as Parker's girl-next-door sweetheart. Where Spider-Man falls short is in its hyperactive CGI action sequences, which play like a video game instead of the gravity-defying exploits of a flesh-and-blood superhero. Willem Dafoe is perfectly cast as Spidey's schizoid nemesis, the Green Goblin, and the movie's a lot of fun overall. It's no match for Superman and Batman in bringing a beloved character to the screen, but it places a respectable third. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
When so many DVDs offer making-of featurettes and commentaries, it's a real treat to get something different on the Spider-Man DVD: a 25-minute documentary, "Spider-Man: The Mythology of the 21st Century," that examines the history of the Marvel comic book through original art and interviews with co-creator Stan Lee and artists such as John Romita, John Romita Jr., Todd McFarlane, and John Byrne. There is also a comics archive and artists gallery. And if you want info about the movie, you can get that, too: a commentary track by director Sam Raimi, actor Kirsten Dunst, producer Laura Ziskin, and co-producer Grant Curtis, plus a technically oriented commentary by the effects crew; pop-up factoids offering trivia about the movie and comic book; occasional Easter eggs leading to featurettes (e.g., 90 seconds on wrestler Randy Savage as Bonesaw McGraw); and promotional documentaries, screen tests, outtakes, and the like. --David Horiuchi

From The New Yorker
The perils and advantages of being bitten by a genetically modified spider are made abundantly clear in Sam Raimi's enjoyable, if broken-backed, exercise in high-cost pulp. Tobey Maguire plays Peter Parker, who develops a useful ability to hurl threads of web from his wrists and thus becomes, to his delight, the highest swinger in town. This prowess earns him the adoration of Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) and the enmity of the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), whose infinite capacity for evil is slightly undercut by the fact that he began life as a man called Norman. The movie is all over the place, unable to decide, for instance, whether New York should be shot as a livable city or as a Gothamite gulf of crime; similarly, Dafoe delivers a cartoon while Maguire offers a funny, rueful study in uncertain heroics. The picture is more violent than it has any right to be: why bother to throw grenades at Spider-Man, when you can presumably chase him away with a stiff broom? -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker