Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy

Like the majority of the Internet, I am extremely excited for the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home that's being released in a few weeks. In honor of that, I recently watched all of the previous Spider-Man films that I had never seen before (or at least not that I have clear memories of). So, what better way to prepare for the latest effort than by looking back at the previous cinematic incarnations of Spider-Man? To start, I'll be sharing my thoughts on Sam Raimi's three Spider-Man films from the 2000s. I'm combining the three of them into one post since I thought that would make the most sense, and hopefully I can keep this to a reasonable length.

Let's see!

Spider-Man (2002)

Watched on November 16, 2021.

While I mostly see people point to the second film in this trilogy as the high point, I was still excited for the original going in because I knew that this was the only one that was going to show Peter Parker in high school. I'll elaborate more on that later, but that was the main thing I was looking forward to before I started this. To prevent myself from rambling, I'm going to attempt to separate my thoughts into positives, negatives, and stuff that I was mixed on. I could sort every aspect of the film into one of these three categories, but I am going to try to limit myself so I won't discuss everything about the film in this review.

Let's start with the positives:

• The first thing that jumps into my mind is Willem Dafoe. I knew that he was well-received in the role of Green Goblin before watching and I have to agree with the positive sentiments. I think that he does a really good job of being intimidating without falling into the trap of feeling self-serious. Also, bonus points for the scenes where Green Goblin is portrayed as an alternate personality to Norman Osborn. These showed Dafoe's range and the direction of these scenes brought a level of creepiness to the film (which leads to my next point).
• Sam Raimi's direction. It feels slightly strange to praise a movie's direction where I don't know the first thing about directing myself, but in this case, I think it comes down to style. As I just mentioned before, Raimi's horror background can be seen in the Green Goblin scenes, and I think that he is great at building tension in scenes. Besides the tension, I just love watching movies from the early 2000s in general since I feel like the style is a bit specific, and I definitely got a 2000s comic-book movie vibe from this.
• I could bring up this point for all three of the films, so I'll just get it out of the way here. Danny Elfman's score is iconic at this point and I can see why. Usually when it comes to superhero films the score isn't something that typically sticks out to me, but here I did notice it and I thought that it worked well for the film. (As a side note, I did learn that the score for the third film was composed by Christopher Young and that Elfman only did the music for the first two movies. I think my point still stands though since I don't remember thinking that the score of the third movie was significantly different or worse, so it still counts as a positive for all three movies).
• Tobey as Peter Parker. Specifically I'm mentioning Peter Parker and not Spider-Man here since I think that he did the better job as Peter. Not to imply that he was bad at Spider-Man since I don't think he was, but it's just that none of his dialogue/work as Spider-Man sticks out in my mind. Obviously the action scenes with Spider-Man are memorable, but it's the character in these scenes that I'm having a hard time remembering. 
• I will only discuss this briefly, but the film's impact/influence. I don't want to use this argument too often in my reviews since I think it is a little cheap at times (ex. a film can be highly influential in its genre, but it's not like I'm going to be constantly thinking of that while I am watching it so it won't influence my enjoyment). But still, this film is regarded as a defining film in the comic book genre and there's no denying its influence on later films.

Now, the things I was more mixed on:

• The tone. I think that it's common knowledge at this point that Raimi's Spider-Man films have more of a light-hearted and cheesy(?) tone than most modern superhero movies. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (as I will discuss later), but for the first film, I think that the tone is definitely the least serious among the three. I don't want to say I disliked it since it didn't outright annoy me or anything like that, but it's just not the sort-of thing that I connected with while watching.
• Mary Jane. To clarify, I liked Kirsten Dunst in this role and I thought that she did a good job of eliciting empathy and humanity in the character, but the thing that I didn't entirely buy was the romance. It wasn't bad, but I've never been a fan of the love-triangle trope in novels or movies, so the whole thing between Peter and Harry and Mary Jane was just kinda meh. Also, I couldn't really tell where Mary Jane's feelings lied throughout the movie. It's clear that Peter and Harry both have feelings for her, but does she have feelings for Spider-Man or for Peter (yes they're the same person, but she doesn't know that at this point). The upside-down kiss (pictured below) is iconic, but I didn't know if I fully bought it when she confessed her love for Peter at the end of the film.

Now for the negatives (of which there aren't very many):

• As I said at the beginning of this review, the one thing I was looking forward to in this film was seeing Peter in the high-school setting. Little did I know that he is only in high-school for about half of the movie. I did like the scenes that did take place while Peter was in his senior year, but I just wish that the whole movie was in that period. Theoretically, I think that the plot could still function with this in mind (the only iffy thing would be Peter's job at the Daily Bugle, but you could just say that it's an internship or something). This isn't really a big deal in the long-run, but I just connect more with the high-school aspect of Peter since that's one of the first things I think of when I hear "Spider-Man" (this was expanded on in the MCU movies though, so I can't really fault the 2002 film too much for this).
• The Uncle Ben storyline. Now to be fair, I didn't hate this part of the film, but from today's perspective the story is so well-known that it doesn't hold the greatest impact for me. "With great power comes great responsibility" is an extremely famous line, but in this situation it did kind of come across as a little cheesy (which I guess does fit in with the movie's tone). Also, I did laugh a little when Peter just lets the thief run past him and how that was the bad decision that led to Ben's death. I guess it's not entirely a bad learning moment, but it was a little strange to me,

That's pretty much all I have to say for Spider-Man. Clearly this movie did a lot for the superhero genre and it's impressive that the film still holds up even when compared to many recent movies in the genre. I know that a ratings system for movie reviews is a little controversial for some (since they think that people only focus on the score and not the material found within the review), but since I use Letterboxd so often (and I'm not trying to fool anyone into thinking I'm a professional), I'll just go with a scale of 1-10 for these reviews. So for Spider-Man my final rating was a 7/10.

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Watched on November 17, 2021.

As good sequels should be, Spider-Man 2 is both bigger and better than the first film. In terms of my expectations going in, I was hoping that this movie would be more enjoyable than the first since the common consensus seems to be that this movie improved on the first one in many ways. To summarize my thoughts in a phrase: I agree, but let's go a little deeper into what I thought.

The positives: 

• Like the first film, I loved the villain. Alfred Molina was great as Doctor Octopus (or Doc Ock for short). Similarly to the first film, Doc Ock was good at being intimidating and building tension. Specifically, the "birth of Doc Ock" scene in the surgical office and the train fight scene were both quite suspenseful and they both showed extra nods to Sam Raimi's horror background just as the first film did. Also, I thought that Peter's connection to the villain was much stronger in this film. On a basic level, it kind of just ends up being another one of Peter's mentors turning evil, but for this movie I thought it made more sense for Peter to look up to Dr. Octavius instead of Norman. It also continues the through-line of Harry Osborn gaining reasons to resent Peter and eventually want to attack him (as we see in the third film). To go along with this (just because I didn't want to make this its own point), I love the scene where Harry unmasks Spider-Man and reveals Peter since he really sells the reaction and it's a good setup for the final film. 
• As I just hinted at, I also loved the train fight scene. Not only is it great at building suspense (and showing off the movie's visual effects), but it also acts as a great dramatic moment. Specifically, after Doc Ock temporarily retreats after Peter saves the train passengers, I love the moment where the citizens see Spider-Man unmasked but promise to keep his secret and try to protect him when Doc Ock returns. To me, this is easily the best scene of the movie and it definitely helped my rating of the film since this feels like a scene I will always think about when thinking about Spider-Man.
• Peter's conflict. I thought that the idea of Peter losing his powers because of a subconscious urge to give up the mantle of Spider-Man was extremely interesting. This added a new element to the film without making the film feel overstuffed (as we will see in a bit). This also kind of goes along with Peter and Mary Jane's relationship, which I also liked more than the first film. I liked that we got to see more of Peter trying to juggle his two lives, and this plays into his relationship really well. While we're at it, I might as well mention this film's tone compared to the first. The tone here is a little more serious than the first, and I don't have much commentary to add besides that, but I just like that the sequel is a bit darker than the original. 

The meh:

• The main thing that I'd say I'm mixed on for this movie is the length. Not that 2 hours and 7 minutes is an extraordinarily long film, but I do find that superhero movies do tend to feel like the studios have to make a film that's over 2 hours even though it doesn't need to be. Here, I don't think the length is a huge issue but it's just something to note when it comes to comic book movies. I probably won't post a review of Venom: Let There Be Carnage  in the near future, but let it be known that I really admire that Andy Serkis chose to keep that film as brisk as it needed to be.
• The other thing that was a little strange about this film was the existence of an alternate cut (which is apparently known as Spider-Man 2.1). This type of thing doesn't have much to do with the movie's quality but it does throw me off when I'm about to watch a movie only to realize that I have to make a choice between two cuts. This always stresses me out for no logical reason other than I'm too indecisive to make a choice on the fly. For anyone who cars though, I watched the theatrical cut of this movie since when I did research online most people said that you weren't missing anything by watching the theatrical over the 2.1 or "DVD" cut, so there's that.

The negatives:

• Honestly there isn't much I can point to in this movie and say I actively disliked it. I did say I like the Peter and Mary Jane relationship more in this movie but I will point out that they try to do the love triangle thing again but this time with John Jameson and it's just kinda there but it doesn't detract from the film. I guess if I want to explain my rating below I'll just say that I thought this movie was really solid and I enjoyed watching it but I wouldn't say I loved it. I guess if we're taking this opportunity to explain my ratings I'll just say that a 10/10 would mean it's one of my favorites, a 9/10 is an amazing film that I love but just not an all-time favorite (not much separating a 9 and 10 to be honest), and 7 and 8s out of 10 are films that I enjoyed and basically I'd call a 7 film "good" and an 8 film "great." So, Spider-Man is a good film and Spider-Man 2 is a great film (and we'll get to 3 when we get there).

That's it for the second film. As I've said, I do agree with many critics who say that this film is better than the first, and my final rating was an 8/10.

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Watched on November 21, 2021.

Ah yes, the ill-fated finale to Sam Raimi's trilogy. The funny thing is that this wasn't even supposed to be a trilogy as far as I'm aware, but this movie kind of ruined those plans, which is a shame. I'm sure everyone knows what happened after this movie released, but is the movie really as bad as its reputation would imply? That sort-of ends up being a complicated issue since the movie seems to be more divisive than anything (it even has a slightly positive score on Rotten Tomatoes, but take that information with a grain of salt). Either way, let's see how this film holds up. Side note: As I'm writing this review I've realized that an "Editor's Cut" of this movie exists that was first released in 2017. I didn't know this when I watched the film so I have to assume that the version I watched was the theatrical cut since there was no indication of the film being a special cut. Anyways, if there are any Spider-Man purists reading who strongly believe that this Editor's Cut is the definitive edition, I guess we'll have to save that for another time.

The positives:

• J. Jonah Jameson. I'm sure that you all might have been expecting me to mention J.K. Simmons in the first movie review since he is a standout of the entire trilogy, but I wanted to save him for this movie since I don't have many other positives to add. But seriously, I love Simmons in this role. He's really good at playing an ass, but a likable ass. He also brings most of my favorite humor in these movies, and I always paid attention whenever he was on screen. Clearly I'm not the only one who loves Simmons since the Marvel execs wanted to bring him back for the MCU films (even though I'm confused how this will work with the whole multiverse thing they're going to do, but we'll see how that plays out in a few weeks). 
• Uh, the other stuff I like in the movie is mainly carryover from the previous two films. Sam Raimi still does a good job directing, the visual effects have aged pretty well (at least for Sandman), and the setup for Harry becoming the new Green Goblin is paid off in this movie, but it's arguable for how well you might think that worked. Anyways, let's get to the rest.

The meh:

• First and foremost, Sandman. This was the thing that came closest to being in the positives section of the review, but one thing was stopping me. Specifically, I don't like the weird revisionist history they have going on with Flint Marko's connection to Uncle Ben. Even though I criticized the first movie for handling Uncle Ben's death in a strange way (whether or not it was comic-book accurate doesn't add or detract from my enjoyment cause they can always change the story if they see fit), I think that this kind of makes it worse in a way. I do understand that the whole point is to allow Peter to give forgiveness to Ben's killer, but it also detracts from the whole point of Peter learning a lesson in moral responsibility since Ben still might have been killed if Peter stopped the other criminal. Besides this, I think that Sandman is the best villain of the THREE in this movie. At the very least, he has the most interesting backstory and I like his transformation scene. He doesn't really have a connection to Spider-Man which was interesting, but it also means that the Sandman has no reason to attack Spider-Man other than retaliation for Spider-Man attacking him earlier. I'm also still slightly confused on how he survived being washed away since I assumed that water was his main weakness, but I also may not have been paying enough attention to the scene where he returns.
• The second villain of the movie was Harry Osborn's Green Goblin. I said it was arguable if the payoff to Spider-Man 1&2's setup of Harry was successful, and I think it was just okay. The beginning of the film leans heavily into the rivalry between Harry and Peter, but then after one fight Harry gets partial amnesia and just forgets about his hatred for Peter so there's not even a point after the first 30 minutes. And then there suddenly is a point when act 3 comes around but then they team up and Harry ends up dying anyways. Not an offensive character arc, but I just didn't end up caring very much by the end. 
• Gwen Stacy. I don't really have much to say about her inclusion other than it doesn't really make sense for the movie. I think that there were other ways to put strain on Peter and Mary Jane's romance besides introducing an "other woman." The movie even shows that this is possible because of Mary Jane's Broadway hardships and Peter's ignorance of her and his commitments to her. I like Bryce Dallas Howard though and I think she was fine in the role, so I didn't want to put her in the negatives section.

The negatives: 

• I guess now I might as well talk about the third villain in this mess. Venom has no business being in this movie. Again, I'm not here to recount the movie's production, but I think that the issue behind Venom was that Raimi didn't want it in the movie, but the producers/studio pushed for its inclusion so that's just great. It just really doesn't do it for me here. The whole point of Venom is that it enhances Peter's abilities while also making him more aggressive, but honestly he felt more rude/aggressive even before he had the black suit. Also, this movie is now infamous for Peter Parker basically turning "emo" when he has the Venom suit on. It feels outdated to call Peter "emo" in this movie since that term feels like it belongs in the 2000s, but it's the best way I can describe how Peter is basically turned into a caricature halfway through the movie. I also don't even understand the rules of Venom in the movie because at one point it just makes the Spider-Man suit black instead of red and blue, but Peter can still take it off, but then later on in the movie it's attached itself to his skin and he needs to make a loud noise (the bell) in order to remove it. So did Venom basically just morph itself into the spider-suit or was it separate from that? I still don't really know. 
  
• And now we reach the HUGE flaw of this movie: it's overstuffed. If my three separate paragraphs about the three separate villains in this movie didn't alert you, then let me clarify that there's way too much going on in this movie. At some points it feels like you're watching three different movies altogether because Green Goblin is only relevant at the beginning, Sandman is mostly relevant in the middle, and Venom doesn't become a villain until near the end. I could almost justify including three villains and many different plotlines if this was the end of the franchise, but that wasn't even the original plan. There was supposed to be a Spider-Man 4 and a Venom spinoff movie, so it doesn't make sense to include so much in this movie if they wanted to make another one. As it is, we are now left with an overstuffed final film in the trilogy and Venom is now its own separate thing (which I actually like since they rebooted the character as a whole, but its clear that Sony didn't know what it was doing in 2007). 

That's pretty much it for Spider-Man 3. I don't have to explain how the general public feels about this movie compared to the first two, but I was still surprised by how much I ended up disliking it. I wish that this wasn't Tobey's final outing as Spider-Man, but based on all of the rumors, he might have another shot at the role in No Way Home. I don't want to raise my expectations though, so as of now I'm assuming he won't be in the new film, but I am glad that Sandman is confirmed to be returning since he didn't really get a conclusion in this movie. My final score for this movie was a 4/10. 

And thus concludes Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. Overall, it was pretty fun to go back and see how Spider-Man was portrayed before the MCU had even begun. While Spider-Man 3 was a huge disappointment, I did enjoy the first two movies and I probably will end up rewatching them in the future. And even if I didn't like the third film, its legacy does live on in its memes, so I guess that's something. Reading this back, it's a little funny how the second film was my favorite but I wrote the least about it, so if you want a little extra tidbit, it's basically everything I like about the first film but a little better. My next reviews will be of the two Amazing Spider-Man films, and I have already seen them at the time of writing this review so hopefully the next post will be up very soon. I may end up changing the format of the reviews for the next films but I am pretty pleased with the length of these reviews so I won't write this format off just yet (I just want to experiment for now). I do have a lot of thoughts on the next two movies so I would expect that post to be a similar length to this one. But let me know if you enjoy this style of reviews and thank you for reading!