What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that this movie's PG-13 rating comes
from a couple of mild words, a clingy wet T-shirt, and --
particularly -- a great deal of comic book-style violence. It
can get very intense and includes not just fires and
explosions, but people getting vaporized, shot (off-camera),
and impaled. Characters lose people close to them; a group of
schoolchildren is in peril; and parents emotionally abuse their
children. But the movie's core messages about empathy and
responsibility are strong, and Peter Parker is one of the comic
book world's more thoughtful heroes.
Families can talk about the fact that two major male parent figures die. Many of the kids (particularly boys) who will be most interested in seeing the movie are at an age when separation from parents is starting to become an issue. You might want to have a conversation about real-life ways to deal with that. Also, do you agree that people "love to see a hero fail"?
Common Sense Media Review
Remember when
Superman
was released with the tagline "You will believe a man can
fly?" Well, SPIDER-MAN will not only make you believe that a
teenager can swing from the skyscrapers, it will almost make
you believe that you're up there swinging with him.
Comics were hugely popular back in the days when they could show us stories that no one else could. Now, movies can show us anything that can be imagined, and a movie like this does it so well that it makes you think that this is what imagination is for.
Toby Maguire stars as Peter Parker, a brilliant and sensitive high school student who's so deeply in love with his next-door neighbor Mary Jane ( Kirsten Dunst) that he can barely bring himself to say hello to her. On a school field trip, he's bitten by a genetically engineered spider; the next morning he wakes up with some distinctly arachnid-like qualities: He can see without his glasses, climb walls, eject webbing with the swinging power of rope and the strength of steel, and anticipate danger.
Like any teenager, the first thing Peter does is impress a girl and humiliate a bully. He enters a wrestling match to get money to buy a car to impress the girl even more. His decision not to interfere with an armed robber has tragic consequences -- teaching him that his uncle was right in telling him that with great power comes great responsibility. Great risk comes as well: Everyone Peter cares about is put in danger because of who he is.
Meanwhile, Peter's best friend's father, industrialist Norman Osborn ( Willem Dafoe), has decided to try out his company's new product on himself. He, too, develops extraordinary power -- and a mad fury. His new alter ego is dubbed the Green Goblin for his bizarre armor-like covering.
Maguire is just right as Peter: thoughtful, sensitive, thrilled with his new powers. You can believe that he's the kind of kid who would spend his time a little bit apart from the others, taking photographs that are clear and perceptive. The supporting cast is great, especially stage star Rosemary Forsyth as Aunt May and J.K. Simmons as Peter's bombastic editor. The script is excellent, striking just the right note of respect and affection for the source material. It has a contemporary feel without being showily post-modern or ironic.
