Has everybody on earth seen this movie already? Good, then I'll be brief: I enjoyed Spider-Man. As comic book movies go, it has wit, strong characters, and some freshness about the age-old archetype of the dual identity crisis. The entire film really rests on Tobey Maguire's ability to create a sympathetic character, and thankfully he delivers (which, in my opinion, he doesn't always do in other films). And Kirsten Dunst is undeniably cute.
My only beef with the film is a big one: the costume designed for Spider-Man's archenemy the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) is awful. Not only does it look nothing like the original villain (who in the comic actually had green scaly skin and wore a tunic), but it feels as though it was designed specifically to be easily computer-animated. Spider-Man could have been a great movie, almost even on par with the 1978 Superman (though it never achieves that film's level of myth or scope), if only they gave Gobby a cooler costume.
You think I'm kidding? I'm not.
Nevertheless, the amount of love and care that Sam Raimi put into this film is clear. Like Peter Jackson, he is someone who truly adores making movies, who absolutely pours his heart into what he's doing, and, as in Jackson's work, it shows. These are the guys who should be making blockbusters with nine-figure budgets (if, indeed, anybody should), and I'm glad they are.