Of all the recent comic-book transplants to the big screen, Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker has been the most likable, quirky and reliably human, even when he's squirting web-juice from his hands as the semi-superhuman Spider-Man.

WSJ: Film Review

Their rough-hewn prototype sits in a small room at Trust Automation's headquarters in San Luis Obispo, California, using a water-filled vitamin bottle as a shock absorber. ("It runs like a Corvette on a Pinto engine, " Safreno says, smiling.) The ratty demo reel first shows a 22-second clip of an actor walking on a grassy lawn, past a blurred van, squirting water with a hose, at 24 fps.

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