Quentin Kemmer is a security guard at Biotechco (Genericonglomhugeco!). He’s an average New York City dude who lives in a crappy apartment, has a dog named Thor, pines after requisite cute-girl-down-the-hall Stephanie, and dreams of being just like his favorite superhero, the Arachnid Avenger (holy copyright infringement, Batman!), so he can beat up the goons who pester him and Stephanie outside their slum-ass apartment.

One day, there’s a break-in at Biotechco (seriously, who breaks into a top-secret genetics lab at 5:30 in the afternoon?). Quentin’s partner is killed in the shootout, and as Quentin tries to help, the cops arrive and shove him out of the way. Once the smoke clears, all the terrorists and several cops are dead, and both the police and scientists blame Quentin for the deaths. This is incredibly poor writing, my friends. They give classes that can help you not put stupid things like this in your movie. How the hell is one scrawny security guard, armed only with a can of Mace, supposed to take down an entire terrorist cell packing machine guns when a squad of cops can barely get the job done? No matter, it’s only an excuse for Quentin to get angry about being the underdog once again and do the only logical thing…inject himself with glowing tarantula mojo juice (that’s seriously what they call it in the movie, don’t ask me) from one of the machines in the lab!

After spending a night in a bathtub full of ice, eating about 100 pounds of meat (but thoughtfully sharing some with Thor), and convincing Stephanie that the needle mark on his arm isn’t the result of being a heroin fiend (accomplished in a conversation that goes something like: “Don’t play dumb, I’ve seen track marks before.” “No, really, I’m not a druggie, I just got injected with some glowing red spider mojo at work.” “So that’s why you’re sleeping in a tub full of ice.” “Pretty much.” “You want a ride to the hospital?” “Nah, I’m fine.” “You just got pumped full of radioactive spider isotopes and you don’t want to go to the hospital?” “Yep, I’m good.” “Huh. Okay, then.”), Quentin feels better than he ever has. He develops super strength, rescues Steph from a rapist, and beats up the thugs outside the building.

He even manages to kill the murderer whom Detective Jack “Dan Akroyd” Grillo has been chasing throughout the subplot (which does nothing but pad the film until now, so I never mentioned it - I’m also not going to mention Jack’s lush wife who cheats on him with other cops).

Then things start going downhill. Quentin develops an organic web-shooter in his chest (holy copyright infringement, Batman! Holy joke recycling, Batman!). He is also plagued by an insatiable hunger, which almost causes him to eat Thor (thumbs up for not killing the puppy, movie). He starts devouring people and leaving web goo on the scene, leading Detective Grillo closer and closer to the truth.

Eventually, Quentin morphs into what looks suspiciously like a recycled Predator head with spider legs sticking out of his back, kidnaps Stephanie, and nearly eats her before Grillo shows up and blows him away.

I really don’t think this should have been called Earth vs. The Spider. It’s more like A Couple Of People vs. A Dude Who Is Part Spider But Is Very Easily Killed. There isn’t even an implied threat to the entire planet from Spidey-Quentin. Sure, he might eat a couple of people, but he gets taken out with a couple of slugs from a handgun. Even left to his own devices, he’d probably only kill a few dozen people before he was beaten to death by a street gang in some alley. I think that for something to be properly versus-ing the entire Earth, it should at least be impervious to service revolvers.

There are a couple of nods to the original Spider. The owner of the comic shop Quentin frequents is watching it when Quentin comes in for the new Arachnid Avenger book, and in Quentin’s second-to-final spider monster stage, he makes that weird in-drawn breath squeal that the original spider makes. Still, a couple of nudge-winks do not a remake…uh…make, I guess.

So this is pretty much a lamely written/acted/produced cross between Spider-Man and Cronenberg’s The Fly, then. There are a lot of really embarrassing moments in this movie. Mostly Quentin’s entire performance, and particularly his incredibly obvious and painfully bad attempts at aping Jeff Goldblum’s Brundlefly. And then there’s the scene where he flies down a stairwell to attack some random dude. The flying, oh the flying. Seriously, what spider has the power to hover in midair? Has the Arachnid Avenger been taking powers-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-my-animal-namesake lessons from Puma Man?

Dan Akroyd pretty much skulks around in the shadows acting like he really doesn’t want to be here, and I can’t blame him. You’re better than this, Dan. You know it, and I know it too. But we all have to do things for money that we don’t want to do from time to time. Like when Bandai released those new repaints of Godzilla ‘69 and Hedorah, and I didn’t have any money left after bills, so I did that thing with that guy in the alley with the egg beater and the greasepaint. I still walk crooked when it rains. Still, I can honestly say I wasn’t in Earth vs. The Spider, and I feel pretty good about that.

The spider makeups are pretty cool, but what do you expect from Stan Winston? Even if he is just ripping off one of his own greatest creations and sticking some extra eyes on it. There, that’s one good thing about the movie, can I have my damn RAM chip now?