It always hurts a little when one of the fav movies of your childhood doesn't hit as good as it used to. I love Spider-Man (2002) but this movie makes me realize just how much better the sequel is in every way.

Without thinking too much about it, the first thing that broke my immersion immediately was seeing these older people play teenagers, I did find out later that even Tom Holland was 21 years old when he did Homecoming but that doesn't distort the fact that those actors in the later film just look so much more like kids. To see Tobey Maguire, Kristen Dunst and James Franco go through family life and school crushes just didn't engage me on a personal level

The emotional punches however were just as good as I had imagined them in my mind, the Uncle Ben speech and the nasty course of events that lead to his death are so beautifully done here. I don't remember the equivalent of this scene in The Amazing Spider-Man but I'm glad the MCU movies skipped over it because this is the definitive Uncle Ben death for me as well Peter learning to overcome his selfish teenage needs when he feels guilty about his Uncle's death.

This movie and the later sequel and Spider-Man 3 do one thing really well: subversion inside the movie. Things never go as well as the characters want them to go and watching three actor's convey that embarrassment and shame reveals so much about their characters. Mary Jane trying to hide that she's working but immediately getting found out, Peter looking at Harry when Harry tells the same scientific facts to M.J that he had told him and that were brushed off as boring. It's all charming and endearing in a way

This movie is also insane for some reason? Like the amount of times we see Peter doing web stuff without a suit and doing stuff without a mask is crazy and it became harder and harder for me to believe people in the movie didn't notice anything amiss.

The effects looks goofy today, especially whenever Peter/Spider-Man leaps up but it still manages to contain some excellent looking action-sequences and some great web-slinging shots especially towards the ending of the film.

Two things I really enjoyed this time were Norman Osborn's struggle with his evil persona combined with Willem Dafoe bringing this character to life and the music of the film. Danny Elfman did a great job and he does a greater job in the sequel as well.

I think most of my faults with the film and me not loving it as much as my nostalgia wanted me to is because of the loose plot structure of the film, it doesn't feel as tighter as SP2

But maybe it's just me comparing it to the sequel too much.

Anyway, I would give it a 7.5/10 fun movie