Italian Spiderman (2007) User Reviews

From the makers of Danger 5. Obviously.

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 13 July 2015]

If you're a fan of silly Aussie TV series Danger 5 then there's a good chance that you'll also enjoy this earlier effort from director Dario Russo. It's more silly than surreal, but it does a great job of parodying its chosen genre: the pulpy '60s/'70s foreign action adventures that gave their own unauthorised spin on popular American superheroes.

The basic plot goes something like this: Italian Spiderman (David Ashby) is a macho crime-fighter who loves his women, his macchiato coffee, and his cigarettes. He leaps into action after master criminal Captain Maximum breaks into the lab of Professor Bernardi and steals an asteroid that possesses the power to replicate living creatures, including humans.

Russo captures the look and feel of the era brilliantly, with grainy, saturated photography, wild editing, cheesy action, hot babes, bad special effects, and a groovy soundtrack. The fun includes a thoroughly unconvincing motorbike chase scene, a surf challenge between Spiderman and Captain Maximum that involves bikini babes and penguins, a cool psychedelic sequence, and a brutal showdown in a quarry that sees our hero single handedly taking on Maximum's henchmen before blowing the main bad guy sky high. Just like the real thing, the whole affair is blessed with an irresistible lack of logic.

7/10, plus a bonus point for Professor Bernardi's sexy daughter Jessica and his tasty lab assistant Judy. Minus one point, however, for the irritating 'shocked' character who wobbles his head from side to side. So that's 7/10 then!

Quite entertaining and unique comedy

[medinaalangabriel · 9/10 · 15 October 2018]

Loved it! Gotta give it a 9/10 though cause despite being mentioned in the trailer, there was no goblin at all in the movie.

A Hilarius parody with an unique type of humor

[henrikonemail · 10/10 · 30 May 2013]

Watched this movie some weeks ago it was maybe the funniest movie i have seen this year. The thing i loved the most about it was it's low budget humor. everything is "ment" to be low quality

My possibly favorite scene would haft to be the surfing fighting scene where Italian spider man summons penguins to attack, with his super powers, was pretty dam funny.

Another funny scene is when Italian spider man uses his mustache as a boomerang and uses it against the main protagonist. definitely worth the watch! 11/10

The movie was short but perfect, worth the watch for anyone with a good sense of humor

This is a pure work of art, nothing more, nothing less. Just art. Pure art.

[davide_incalza · 10/10 · 10 January 2018]

I've never seen anything this beatiful in my entire life before.

And Very Unique Vision

[socrates4 · 10/10 · 8 June 2019]

ITALIAN SPIDERMAN is absolutely hilarious from the first frame to that last. And it's totally original and unique. It's definitely worth checking out. Anyone and everyone should be thoroughly entertained by this gem.

Made my some Australians, it passes itself off as a garish take on Spiderman through the lens of a group of Italian filmmakers from the 1970's. It uses all the filmmaking tricks and styles of that era, sometimes to the extreme in order to get big laughs, but never lets that get in the way. It's laughs all the way. Some will enjoy it more than others, but all will have a good time. Highly recommend.

Italian Spider-Man

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 7 July 2022]

At one point, before the internet united the world and divided our country, each nation had its own take on superheroes, like Japan's Supaidaman, Turkey's 3 Dev Adam (there are so many to pick from in that country, to be honest) and Mexico's La Mujer Murcielago.

Director Dario Russo and actor David Ashby made this as a short in college, then turned it into multiple episodes in which Italian Spiderman (Ashby as Franco Franchetti) proves to be the only man who can hold a reality-altering asteroid.

From a surf contest with Captain Maximum (Leombruno Tosca) to growing to a massive size to fight that villain, massacring his henchmen and losing his mentor Professor Bernardi, all while stock footage crocodiles turn into men, penguins being summoned, mustache boomerangs and the non-appearance of a villain named Goblin run past you at superhuman speed.

It helps if you know way too much about ripoff remix remake films, but even if you don't, this is still pretty great.

Russo and Ashby would go on to make Danger 5.

Italian Spiderman: Erm.....what!?

[Platypuschow · 3/10 · 15 December 2018]

Right, so...........Italian Spiderman. Where in the blue hell would I start with this one?

This Australian made 40 minute short movie plays out like a 1960's exploitation movie complete with cinematography effects. It tells the story (And I use that term very loosely) of Italian Spiderman a dumpy superhero with undefined super powers taking on his evil luchador nemesis.

Though it looks Grindhouse it's a comedy even more ridiculous than the Airplane (1980) movies. It's not so much slapstick as it is random, weird and intentionally baffling. I see what they were doing and truth be told I often enjoy that horror, but here it just failed to hit the mark.

To its credit it's such an odd movie it is undeniably memorable. From the ridiculous dialogue to the hilariously intentionally bad sfx to the deeply moronic lead.

Again I get what they were trying to do but I couldn't get behind it. If something is going to be silly then it needs to be funny and very little was here.

The Good:

A couple of funny moments

Truly original

The Bad:

Most jokes miss their mark

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I don't remember microscopes working that way

Sin Cara likes frog porn

Not funny, not interesting, not Spiderman

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 9 November 2015]

"Italian Spiderman" is a 40-minute Australian short film from almost 10 years ago written and directed by Dario Russo and he is also the dubbed voice of the lead actor here. Obviously, his ethnic roots contribute to the story behind this movie as we see a fat guy with long hair and a mustache playing Spiderman here. However, the only thing that this weak film here has in common with Spiderman is that the main character wears a red costume. Also I cannot remember when Spiderman used guns like he does in this film. I guess that must be the Italian mafia connection? Very creative. Not. This film does not only look very amateurish from start to end, it also has forgettable acting and none of the jokes are really funny, nor the antagonists interesting. Pretty bad movie that profited obviously from the title character's popularity and became slightly well-known itself thanks to that. Absolutely not deserved. Not recommended.