Spider-Man Strikes Back (1978 TV Movie)
Nicholas "sound of music" Hammond dons the spandex for this crass second seventies outing.
25 March 2001
Well you've read the comics, seen the various cartoon's and then you watch this. "Sweet jesus what is going on" was my first thought when viewing this nugget of 70's nostalgia. The first shock came when I saw good old Peter Parker, not only was he sporting a very fetching donkey jacket (I could almost smell the tramp urine) he also had the most ridiculous haircut, "ah well its only seventies fashion" I thought to my self, but no, not only had PP taken up the substitute school teachers wardrobe, he had somehow lost all his classic wit (probably all them nasty drugs). No longer was Peter Parker the nerd who became cool, he was just a nerd. Then he donned the spandex...

Gone was the athletic wall crawler who swung his way round the city with ease, only to be replaced by a positively lethargic "2cm per hour wall crawling speed" imposter, instead of gracefully traversing the city roof tops via his web shooters, he seemed to prefer to run about in a very foppish manner indeed (usually sticking to the one roof top)although on one occasion in the film he does swing from one building to another (although it is the exact same footage that was used in the first film and his webs are now inch thick white rope that can self tie knots around poles and other protruding objects). Then there's the fight scenes, In the comics he goes head to head with people such as Rhino and other massive super strong villians, In this he gets smacked by skinny "Jeff Capes" lookalikes, (so much for spider strength). On the villian front there is Mr. White who's about as threatening as your mum. Ah well for all its faults it is part of the Spiderman legacy, even if it does reflect the cheese of the seventies far too well. Watch it if your a die hard Spider-fan (call it spiderman the wilderness years) but if your new to the world of spider-man, read the comics and wait for Sam Raimi's film.
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