Spider-Man was, along with Bryan Singer's X-Men, one of the movies that caused Hollywood to stand up and take note as to the box office power of comic book movies; and indeed, though Sam Raimi's movie has dated somewhat since it first emerged in 2002, there's no denying that this is quite simply one of the most pleasurable and entertaining works in the entire genre; as far as superhero "origin" stories go, it remains near on unparalleled, as nerdish Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is bitten by a radioactive spider and gains superpowers. Spider-Man might just well be the most popular of all Marvel's superheroes, and in the wake of many failed attempts to bring him to the big screen (one of which was a frankly terrible interpretation by James Cameron that we're glad fell through), Sam Raimi - best know for his Evil Dead flicks - proved to be the perfect man for the job, injecting the picture with his trademark kinetic filmmaking style, whilst ensuring it was formulaic enough to be a mainstream hit. Spider-Man remains endlessly watchable as a result; a pioneering work of superhero cinema.