Almost 20 years in the making, Spider-Man was unveiled to the Malaysian movie going public here on 1 May 2002, a day earlier than the rest of the world. Eagerly anticipated not only just amongst comic book fans but also by the general public, it debuted to great success and would eventually go on to gross over US$800 million worldwide, and is the first ever movie to breach the US$100 million barrier in it's opening weekend.

After a beautifully done opening credits sequence designed with a spider-web motif, the movie opens with Tobey Maguire providing the opening narration, and we are introduced to Peter Parker, class nerd, high achieving but ultimately unpopular student. Life for him is dull as he goes through the everyday routine of being roughed up by the school bullies while pining for Mary Jane Watson, his one true love.

His only real friend is Harry Osborn (James Franco), son of billionaire industrialist Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe). On a fateful field trip to Columbia University, Peter is bitten by a genetically modified super spider. Feeling sick and nauseous after the field trip, Peter returns home and rests for the rest of the day. Waking up the next day, Peter is surprised to discover his eyesight has been restored to 20/20 vision and his physique has been buffed up.

His day becomes progressively stranger when he finds himself able to shoot an elastic fluid from his wrists, his agility, strength, and nervous response dramatically heightened, as well as a buzzing in his head warning him of any impending danger. After a fight with school football jock Flash Thompson in the school's hallway, Peter becomes afraid of his newfound abilities, but this fear is quickly replaced by excitement when he discovers that he can now crawl on walls, leap across rooftops effortlessly, and use the fluid he ejects from his wrist to spin around the cityscape.

Revelling in his newfound powers, Peter enters himself into a wrestling match against the undefeated champion Bone Saw McGraw in the hopes of winning $3000, thereby affording to buy a car and finally make a move on Mary Jane. Easily winning the match, Peter is shortchanged when he is only paid $100 as he defeated Bone Saw in under two minutes, and not in the contractually stipulated minimum of three minutes. A dejected Peter leaves the office shortly before a crook robs it and dashes off with the day's earnings, whose escape is successful because Peter did not do anything to stop him.

Walking back to the public library where he's supposed to meet his Uncle Ben, Peter arrives only to see a crowd milling around Ben, who has been car jacked and shot. Filled with anger and rage, Peter uses his powers to track down the man who killed his uncle. Showing down in an abandoned factory, Peter is shocked to realize that the man who killed Ben is the very same crook who robbed the wrestling management office earlier. Realising that if he had done the right thing and stopped the crook earlier, Ben would not have died, and only now does Peter learn that with great power comes great responsibility. Soon, sightings of a mysterious Spider-Man starts popping up around the city, and a legend is born.

Meanwhile, Norman Osborn is faced with financial ruin when competitor Quest Aerospace is favoured by the U.S. military for the latest defence contract. Oscorp lead scientist, Dr Mendel Stromm, to test his strength enhancement formula on Osborn himself, and in a fit of insanity, Osborn kills Stromm and steals the goblin armor and glider. Jetting off to the Quest Aerospace test site, Osborn destroys their experimental exoskeleton and murders the anti-Oscorp General Slocum, thereby ensuring that Oscorp's continued survival.

Unfortunately, things do not continue well for Osborn. As profits are up and stock prices are higher than ever, the Oscorp Board of Directors has decided to sell the company and merge with Quest Aerospace, and demands that Osborn resigns from the company. Literally the nail that broke the camel's back, Osborn finally snaps and hatches a plan to kill the directors at the impending Oscorp World Unity Fair. Spider-Man and the Green Goblin have their first encounter here, and it's only through sheer luck as well as the Goblin's inexperience that Spidey managed to emerge victorious. Hoping that they are kindred spirits, the Goblin approaches Spider-Man in the hopes of forming an alliance, but Spider-Man's rejection sparks a hatred within the Goblin, which would be later amplified when Norman Osborn, who admires Peter Parker a lot for his independence and integrity, realises that Peter is also his nemesis Spider-Man.

Once Osborn realises that both Peter Parker and Spider-Man are one and the same, he attacks Peter's aunt May and lands her in the hospital, while kidnapping Mary Jane. This would eventually lead to the final confrontation between them, which would inevitably lead to Osborn's defeat. Impaled by his Goblin Glider, Osborn begs Peter with his dying breath never to reveal the truth behind his death to his son Harry. Carrying him back to his loft, Harry catches Spider-Man putting a dead Norman Osborn to his bed, and blames him for his father's death.

There are of course many who disliked the changes made to the Spider-Man mythology, but I felt it made a lot of sense for director Sam Raimi and writer David Koepp to do so. The most glaring change is the organic web shooters. Having Peter Parker developing a mutation rather than developing a miracle formula that scientists around the world have been unable to, made more sense to me. Another is the lack of Gwen Stacy and early introductions of Green Goblin and Mary Jane. In the comics, Spidey's first villain was actually the Chameleon, and Peter would find love first in Gwen Stacy, and it would be many years after her death before he developed any real feelings for Mary Jane.

Of course, considering that Gwen Stacy is literally unknown outside of us comic book readers, it makes more sense to have Mary Jane become the love interest of the celluloid version of Spider-Man. Similarly, the Green Goblin, bad Power Rangers style costume notwithstanding, is a much more visually arresting character than the Chameleon. In short, the slight changes made to the canon worked for me, and I fail to see what all the grumbles are about. Comics and movies are inherently different mediums, and having 100% faithful adaptations of one or the other will never work successfully. I believe both director Sam Raimi and screenwriter David Koepp made the right move in instituting these changes.

The casting is also perfect, and hats off to Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe for excellent portrayals of Spider-Man/Peter Parker and Green Goblin/Norman Osborn respectively. Tobey Maguire is able to convincingly show the insecurities that plague the Peter Parker and we can see the evolution of the character from a nerdy schoolboy to a confident young adult. Also, Norman Osborn is able to give the Green Goblin a menacing and often scary profile, and it's not an easy job when you are saddled with an inanimate fibreglass helmet obscuring your face. Do watch out for the scene with Norman Osborn talking to the Green Goblin in his loft.

While the rest of the cast such as Cliff Robertson (Ben Parker), Rosemary Harris (May Parker), Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane), and James Franco (Harry Osborn) are able to portray their characters with aplomb and make you believe that they really are the comic book characters come to life, it is J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson that steals the show. He looks and sounds exactly like everybody's favourite fictional crusty newspaper publisher, and that's no lie. The CGI effects for Spider-Man looks fake at a couple of scenes, most noticeably in the scene where he foils a bank robbery. On the other hand, it improves significantly as the movie progresses, and sometimes it's hard to tell if the Spider-Man is CGI or live action. And a lot of work is obviously done for the final web swinging scene. And not only does it look realistic, it pays homage to the comic by lifting many of the web swinging poses right off the pages of the comic books.

Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphically enhanced video with a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, this DVD is unfortunately marred by grainy video, which is very noticeable in the night time scenes. Also, the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is just average. While the depth and illusion of space generated is top notch, particularly in the scene where Norman Osborn is talking with his alter ego in the mirror, it lacks the oomph that would have enhanced the action sequences. As such, the audio track comics off rather flat and lifeless, and the .1 LFE channel response is weak.

The first disc is rounded up with two rather boring audio commentaries, one by director Sam Raimi, producers Grant Curtis and Laura Ziskin, and actress Kirsten Dunst, and the other hosted by visual effects supervisor John Dykstra and his team of artists and engineers. I believe I am in the minority, but I've always preferred commentaries that focus more on the emotions and feelings of the people involved in the movie rather than the technical work put in.

As with most other Columbia TriStar DVDs, trailers for other titles are included, at the expense of the WTC teaser and first trailer for this movie itself. The WTC teaser, which was quickly withdrawn from circulation shortly after the 9-11 attacks, was understandably absent, but the exclusion of the excellent first trailer for Spider-Man is unforgivable. Sporting a great soundtrack featuring E.S. Posthumus' excellent Pompeii, it was one of the more exciting trailer in years. Fortunately, the quality of the special features increases significantly on the second disc.

The second disc fetures a menu with a Green Goblin motif and the disc is split into two sections, one each for the movie and comics respectively. The HBO "Making Of" featurette, and 40 minute Spider-Mania special from E! Entertainment are found under the movie section. Both are typical marketing pieces that we've come to expect as standard additional features on DVD releases. They do not contain a lot of in-depth information, with extremely limited behind the scenes footage, but are a decent way to spend a boring evening.

The movies section is rounded up with screen tests for Tobey Maguire, J.K. Simmons, and a CGI test for the Spider-Man effects, short and simple video featurettes on director Sam Raimi and score composer Danny Elfman, boring videos of the costume and make-up tests the cast went through and a decidedly unfunny gag and outtake reel. Personally speaking, it is the stills gallery that proved to be the best feature here, as it features quite a number of design sketches for Spider-Man and Green Goblin, as well as the locations and models. However, the best one is a gallery of drawings by various comic book professionals specially commissioned for this DVD release. Featuring art by the likes of Michael Allred, Kevin Nowlan, Gene Colan, Michael Avon Oeming, Duncan Fegredo, Frank Quitely, John Cassaday, and Terry Dodson among many others, this is definitely a good reason to get a DVD player with a zoom function.

For comic book fans, it is the comics section that will undoubtedly provide the most entertainment and value for money. The highlight here is of course the 22 minute Spider-Man: The Mythology of the 21st Century feature, that showcases interviews with various comic book creators who have influenced the canon and mythology of Spider-Man over the past four decades. The interviews with Stan Lee, John Romita (both of them), John Byrne, Kevin Smith, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Axel Alonso, Joe Quesada, Bill Jemas, Jeph Loeb, and Tim Sale are absolutely informative, and provide a lot of insight into why the chose to interpret Spider-Man the way they did. In fact, Tim Sale was actually working on a page of the Spider-Man: Blue mini-series while the interview was being conducted, and seeing both John Romitas providing an on air sketch of Spider-Man is a fanboy's dream come true. I don't want to gripe, but some input from Steve Ditko, Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, J. Michael Straczynski, and Paul Jenkins would have been nice.

This section of the disc is rounded up with a 3D gallery of Spider-Man's rogue gallery, featuring villains ranging from the Green Goblin to the Rhino, Shocker, Vulture, and Chameleon, to even more recent ones such as Hobgoblin, and Venom. There's also a cover gallery featuring some of the more memorable covers from Spider-Man's decades long publication history, although why some of them were chosen over others were questionable indeed, as well as a spotlight on the various lovers Spider-Man and Peter Parker have had. A well deserved pat on the back for the people who did this section as they have wisely chosen to expand upon the section on Gwen Stacy. The women featured here are Betty Brant (whose name is mistakenly spelt Betty Brandt here), Gwen Stacy, Felicia Hardy, and Mary Jane. The omission of Debra Whitman is probably only something comic geeks would notice, so it doesn't matter.

The DVD-ROM section is something I usually ignore for the most part, but the second disc has been well thought out. The spotlight for us comic geeks is definitely the three dotComics provided, which are Spider-Man: Blue # 1, Peter Parker: Spider-Man vol.2 # 44 (the first part of the Return of the Goblin storyline), and Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do # 1. Other bonuses include a demo for the Spider-Man: The Movie videogame from Activision, a 3D screensaver which has Spider-Man swinging around town, and a curious item known as the Spider-Man Visualizer, which is basically a plug-in for Winamp, Windows Media Player, and the Real Player, and is identical to the screen saver with the exception of a few background details that change according to the rhythm of the music being played. It froze my AMD K6-2 450MHz PC, but ran pretty smoothly on a friend's Pentium III 1GHz machine. Just make sure you have at least a TNT2 display adapter and above before trying this out.

Overall, this is a very satisfying DVD, and I haven't had this much fun with the supplementary features on a DVD since Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and Superman: The Movie Expanded Edition.