Our review of Spider-Man. While Bryan Singer’s X-Men proved the viability of superhero films in a post-Batman & Robin world, this proved they could become genuine blockbusters, even if they didn’t star Batman. Don’t laugh: it was a revolutionary thought in the Hollywood of that time. Too bad the movie was never as good as we thought.
Sigh. These movies haven’t aged well. I really enjoyed them the first time around (even parts of #3) but I never feel the desire to revisit them.
You point to one problem in your review – Spidey isn’t proactive. He doesn’t go after the bad guys unless they come after him. And that’s not Spider-Man. In the comics, that was part of the problem with his social life. He was always bugging out on his friends in order to go stop some bad guy. In these movies all the villains have personal relationships with him. There’s no good reason to have the Sandman be responsible for Uncle Ben’s death. A Peter Parker who understood that “with great power comes great responsibility” would be out trying to capture Sandman BECAUSE HE’S THE BAD GUY.
Spider-Man has never been driven by revenge (at least not over the long term), he’s driven by guilt. He was selfish and self-involved ONCE and he’s never going to let that happen again.
I had a similar experience up until part 3, which I still blame for ruining one of my dates (because it makes a better story that way). This led me to an unfortunate re-evaluation of parts 1 and 3, the results of which you see before you. Believe me, we’ll get there.