"WHO am I? You sure you wanna know?" asks Peter Parker, bespectacled photographer, high-school punch bag, suburban orphan and now Spider-Man.

Director Sam Raimi, of Evil Dead fame, instantly establishes that it isn't always jolly super being a superhero.

Parker (the callow Tobey Maguire, perfect unconventional casting) is intelligent, sensitive but scrawny, his spirit stunted by family sadness and bullying, yet he has a wilful streak bursting to break free from beneath the geek surface.

Just add the bite of a genetically modified super spider on a science museum trip, and Parker is flying. Literally.

Granted arachnid agility and better sight, he first crawls up walls, then spins and slings webs from his wrist to go leaping from building to building, in thrall to the sheer thrill of his new super-powers in a sun-saturated Manhattan.

Nervous as a novice bungee-jumper he is full of the joys of spring, yet Parker's Spider-Man realises that "with great power comes great responsibility".

So Spandex-clad Spider-Man sets about the task of tackling crime and helping mankind, bringing him to the destructive attention of arms inventor Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), whose manic scientific quest has, by accident, has turned him schizophrenic. His alter-ego, the insane, cackling, armour-plated Green Goblin, is tanked up on the obligatory villainous desire to wreak havoc on New York first and the world later.

Defoe adds evil delirium to his familiar thespian intensity, while Maguire's super-hero succeeds in being ordinary, vulnerable and uncomfortable with himself and his new status too. Yet he has warmth, a characteristic that marks him out from Michael Keaton's caped crusader, in Tim Burton's gloomy Batman movies.

Raimi's $100million blockbuster is the best screen adaptation of a comic book since Burton's first Batman. Bristling with brio, strong on the psychological interplay of film noir and obsessed with attention to detail (witness the spider-spun opening credits). He is old-fashioned in his determination to establish character motifs and clarity of plot and story-telling, yet he is also focused on the modern demands for spectacular showdowns too.

Raimi is consistently faithful to Steve Ditko and Stan Lee's 50s comic strip for Marvel, while maintaining his own distinctive flair for speeding, hyperactive camera work.

There are slight disappointments: Kirsten Dunst's role as the love interest next door, is too retro and underwritten; and John Dykstra's digital special effects for the stylised action scenes are no match for Burton's Batman, although the gaudy colours are always fantastic.

Never camp, this twisted, dark Spider-Man, should please comic book buffs and long-starved blockbuster thrill seekers alike.

Log on to this web sight, and wet the lips for the sequel, again to be directed by Raimi for 2004 release.

Updated: 15:07 Friday, June 14, 2002