Masked Menace Terrorizes City: Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy

Last year, ahead of the release of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, I took the opportunity to say my peace on the Marvel Cinematic Universe series up until that point, and I don't have too much new to say about them just now, but I'm still looking forward to CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR.  The new movie will introduce Marvel Studios' brand-new iteration of Marvel Comics' most iconic character, Spider-Man, to now be portrayed by Tom Holland (THE IMPOSSIBLE, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA), the third actor to play the character in a major Hollywood movie in just 14 years.  Ahead of CIVIL WAR's release on May 6, feel free to join me in a look back on the five previous movies to star everyone's favorite webhead, including the good, the bad and the ugly, beginning with Sam Raimi's trilogy starring Tobey Maguire...

SPIDER-MAN
Released 3 May 2002
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, J.K. Simmons, Cliff Robertson, Rosemary Harris, Joe Manganiello, Ron Perkins, Michael Papajohn
Rated PG-13 for stylized violence and action.
121 minutes
SPIDER-MAN was a long time coming.  Superhero movies were not yet what they are today, and they'd been mostly dominated by DC character-based franchises, which had since burnt out.  Superman rode the wave that brought along Star Wars and Indiana Jones in the late '70s and early '80s, a nostalgia for old-fashioned heroics and pulp entertainment, but due to incremental budget cuts and creative differences behind the scenes, the series ground to an ignominious halt in 1987 with the low-budget flop, SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE.  Then Batman exploded on the scene in 1989, reinvigorating the summer blockbuster, but again, by the fourth installment of the series, the franchise sputtered to a halt with the infamous camp-fest BATMAN & ROBIN in 1998.  2000 brought an interesting twist to the stop-and-start blockbuster genre in the form of X-MEN, a major Marvel Comics property that had a somewhat weirder bent than the more familiar Batman and Superman, made on an upper mid-range budget and a solid hit at the box office, revealing a previously unfulfilled market for superheroes of a new sort.  But Spider-Man was always popular, more popular than the X-Men or any other Marvel character for that matter, but his skill-set was prohibitively expensive and impractical in the pre-digital age.  Even still, attempts to adapt the character for the big screen had been going on since the mid-'80s, and ironically, they first started at low-budget studios who had even less a chance of successfully depicting the character to fans' satisfaction, but hoped to make a quick buck with the benefit of a strong brand name.  Legendary b movie auteur Roger Corman expressed interest, then Cannon Films, the infamous studio that produced SUPERMAN IV, bought the rights, but nothing came of it.  Then in the early '90s, it finally gained some real momentum under James Cameron, the writer and director of TERMINATOR, ALIENS, and then most recently, the hugely expensive and hugely successful special effects extravaganza TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY.  Cameron's Spider-Man is one of the great unmade movies, a weird and completely different beast from what we ultimately got, intended with an R rating, sexual allusions (after gaining his powers which include organic web-shooters in his wrists, as opposed to the mechanical ones he builds in the comics, Peter wakes up in bed covered in white, sticky stuff), and a sex scene atop the Brooklyn Bridge, in a story where the newly-created Spider-Man fights a megalomaniacal Electro and Sandman.  Cameron developed his version at Carolco Pictures, the studio that produced TERMINATOR 2, but in 1996, due to financial excesses and a streak of box office bombs, Carolco declared bankruptcy.  After a few years of litigation cleaning up the Carolco mess and claiming of its resources, the Spider-Man film rights found their way to Sony/Columbia Pictures

Sam Raimi was interesting choice as the director of SPIDER-MAN, a major, mainstream studio franchise film.  A filmmaker with a cult-following, Raimi's body of work is objectively weird, beginning with the ultra-low budget, ultra-gory "video nasty" horror film, THE EVIL DEAD, followed by its increasingly more comedic sequels, EVIL DEAD 2 and ARMY OF DARKNESS.  He had previously wrote and directed an original superhero movie, DARKMAN, as a response to being turned down to direct BATMAN or a movie based on The Shadow, and bears some noteworthy similarities to SPIDER-MAN.  [Coincidentally at the time, a fellow filmmaker with origins in the ultra-gory horror schlock branch of independent filmmaking had been chosen by New Line Cinema to helm a huge franchise, Peter Jackson for Lord of the Rings.]  Raimi's sensibilities are markedly zany and campy, but he had shown a mature restraint on the psychological thriller A SIMPLE PLAN, and his body of work was widely diversified between horror, fantasy, thrillers, a western (THE QUICK AND THE DEAD), and a sports drama (FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME), while maintaining a strong artistic voice.

SPIDER-MAN builds off of Cameron's version, changing the irradiated spider of the comics to an experimental hybrid, trading out the mechanical web-shooters for organic ones, and following an origin story, but the two villains were eventually traded out for a single villain, a different one.  Although not as popularly known as Doctor Octopus, who appeared as a secondary villain in some earlier drafts, the Green Goblin is the most vicious and personal of his classic villains, famously killing Peter Parker's major love interest, Gwen Stacy.  However, the movie, written by JURASSIC PARK screenwriter David Koepp, went with Peter Parker's/Spider-Man's better-known major love interest, Mary Jane Watson, the woman he dated after Gwen's death and eventually married in the comics.
Peter Parker, played by the fitting but unexpected Tobey Maguire, is the scientifically-inclined social outcast from Queens in his senior year of high school and living with his elderly Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) and Aunt May (Rosemary Harris), who is physically transformed when bitten by an experimental spider hybrid while on a school field trip.  Not only does he no longer need to wear glasses, but he's also ripped, produces super durable webs from his wrists, can stick to walls and ceilings, and possesses supernatural physical prowess.  After attempting to capitalize on his new abilities by entering a cash prize wrestling match (Peter makes a homophobic wisecrack that wouldn't slide today, and the woman at the sign-up desk is a pre-THE HELP Octavia Spencer), the promoter stiffs Peter, who in turn deliberately allows a robber to steal the promoter's money, only to regret it later after the same criminal kills Uncle Ben in a carjacking.  The incident teaches Peter to take his uncle's words to heart, that "With great power comes great responsibility", and he creates the crime-fighting alter ego of Spider-Man.

In parallel, scientist and industrialist Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), father of Peter's best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco), tests a performance-enhancing formula on himself with disastrous results, giving himself supernatural physical prowess, but driving him balls-out insane, setting the stage for super-powered battle between Norman as the Green Goblin and Peter as Spider-Man.
14 years old now, the visual effects mostly still hold up, largely thanks the relatively minor (well, by today's standards) use of CGI effects.  It helps that the two major players in the major special effects sequences have covered faces and wear colorful, smooth-surfaced costumes that can be more convincingly rendered.  Come to think of it, the better part of the action scenes take place at night (the major exception being Spidey and the Goblin's first fight) with lower lighting that doesn't require quite as much of the visual effects team.  Earlier scenes of Peter testing his new abilities have aged more poorly than most of the movie, particularly wide shots of him leaping across rooftops and when he pursues Uncle Ben's killer in his wrestling outfit.  The CGI doubles didn't look great back then.  They don't move naturally.  There is a moment in which the Goblin vaporizes the OsCorp board members at the World Unity Fair using some variation of his "pumpkin bombs", leaving their clearly digital skeletons to collapse to the ground, and while physical skeletons would look better in the shot, it's just a funny little Raimi bit.

The Goblin is the movie's most volatile element, but his very high presence mostly works thanks to Raimi's already campy sensibilities.  Dafoe was the most well known member of the cast at the time (although Kirsten Dunst had been a noted child actress during the '90s) and was best known for unconventional roles in independent films, having just received acclaim for the meta-horror-comedy SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, and was sort of akin to the casting of Gene Hackman in SUPERMAN or Jack Nicholson in BATMAN, the high-profile villain.  But if you thought Nicholson was over-the-top as the Joker, Dafoe delivers that times two. The controversial costume is striking for sure, and the mask design (a half-assed attempt from early drafts to provide a practical reasoning for the mask still exists in the tribal masks that decorate Norman's study) is initially really cool, but when combined with acting, I don't think the Power Rangers villain comparisons are too off.  But again, it often plays into Raimi's style, pushed to its limits in the reaction shot of the Goblin taking a wad of webbing to the eyes during their first fight.  The rest of his outfit is established as the flight suit designed to control a weaponized "glider" developed at OsCorp, and with its bent knees, it looks ridiculous.  But Dafoe is up to the task, snarling all of his Goblin lines with exuberant comic book villainy, and his Norman is so smarmy.  And recoiling with, "Oh! That's cold," when strapping into the chemical chamber?  Love it.  Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man is a smart and unconventional choice that seems like it would be very difficult to get away with today.  He's sufficiently dorky, but he's not exactly handsome, something that even a nerd like Peter Parker has to be able to pull off today.  Nah, he's the real geek deal, even when he's in the Spider-Man costume.  There's not that much of a transformation.  Peter Parker still feels awkward as Spider-Man, even if he enjoys the power of playing superhero.  In comparison to the only major Marvel movie predecessor X-MEN, which traded in its super team's colorful blue and yellow spandex for tactical black leather, Spider-Man's costume, designed by James Acheson, holds relatively true to the comics.  To be fair, Spidey's look was already far better known beyond the comics-reading base than that of the X-Men, but this movie also looks to Tim Burton's BATMAN by taking the established look and texturizing it and darkening a bit.  The Batman movies eventually got carried away with the costume details (nipples!), but most other comics characters translated to the screen had stuck with a somewhat bland standard of spandex.  The most striking alteration to the traditional look is Spidey's sunglasses-style reflective eye pieces, which look really cool, but also turned out to be a real boon to the marketing department, which prominently placed the reflection of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in Spidey's eye for the teaser poster that was unveiled in summer of 2001 and promptly recalled in September (while a number of Hollywood productions such as LILO & STITCH and MEN IN BLACK II were altered as a direct response to 9/11, the specter of the attacks looms large over the New York-set SPIDER-MAN in particular, including an unlikely teaser trailer with special footage of Spidey webbing up a helicopter full of bank robbers between the Twin Towers, which was also pulled from theaters in September 2001).
Kirsten Dunst is a popular point of consternation in this series, but in fairness, Mary Jane Watson isn't an especially strong character, at least in this incarnation.  The character is there entirely to be a love interest, the girl next door (Peter stares out of his bedroom window right across into her bedroom window, and everyone seems okay with how creepy this is) who Peter is head-over-heels for from the opening narration.  She's a kind person with a perky personality, but otherwise, there's not much to her.  Perhaps it would be enough to get by for some actresses, but Dunst doesn't go anywhere with it.  She's not 'bad' in the role, she's just kind of perfunctory.  To get superficial for a moment though, she's at her most attractive in this first movie.  Maybe it's the bolder shade of red for her hair, but she looks good here.

While Koepp's script replaces Gwen Stacy from the comics with "M.J.", he maintains and teases a famous event from the comics when the climactic action revolves around the Green Goblin's kidnapping of M.J.  In the 1973 comics arc "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", the Goblin abducted Gwen and took her to the tower of a bridge (referred to in the comic as the George Washington Bridge, but with illustrations resembling the Brooklyn Bridge) to bait Spider-Man, but when Spider-Man realizes she's dead, it's unclear whether she was killed by the Goblin beforehand or by accident in Spidey's attempt to rescue her.  In the movie, the Goblin takes M.J. to the Queensboro Bridge, where he presents Spider-Man with a moral dilemma, whether to save her or to save a tram car full of children.  While I can appreciate the more heroic direction of Spider-Man being able to rescue both by force of will, it seems like the more interesting direction would be to prove his inability to save everyone by truly forcing him to make a choice.  Instead, it turns out to be a tease, with a little bit of post-9/11 corniness (to be fair, by now, we're separated enough to not have that connection so apparent, but when the movie came out in summer 2002, the New Yorker's helping Spider-Man fight back against the Goblin was almost definitely a nod to the post-9/11 New York pride, with the final shot of Spider-Man and the American flag used to similar effect) as Spider-Man manages to save everyone.

The climax continues to play out similarly to the way it did in the comics afterward though, with the fight carrying on into an abandoned building and ending with the Goblin's accidental death by his glider.  The climactic fight is an odd turn in the movie, becoming significantly more vicious than before, while still maintaining the comic book flavor of bodies crashing through brick walls.  In a trend that continues through his other Spider-Man movies, Raimi finds a way to bring out his actor's face by having an explosion blast away fragments of Spider-Man's mask, enough to get a decent range of expression.  Just as Spider-Man gets the upper hand, the Goblin reveals himself to be Norman Osborn and makes the plea that he's been like a father to Peter, an idea that pops up here and there in the movie, but is never as prominent as I think it may have been intended to be in the script stage.  It's a cool idea, to have Peter lose his main father figure in Uncle Ben, and then be fighting another man he looks upon as a father and have to make that decision when he learns the Goblin's true identity, but it doesn't ever congeal.  The decision to turn the Goblin's death into a bit of a comic beat, with a brief shot of a surprised Norman uttering a weak, "Oh," just before being impaled against a wall is very Raimi.

Even though they don't kill M.J., the movie ends on a pretty great beat, sort of down but also affirming when, at the funeral of Norman Osborn (presumably murdered by Spider-Man, still unknown as the secret identity of the Green Goblin to everyone but Peter), M.J. professes her love to Peter.  It's absolutely his greatest dream come true, and he should be euphoric, but Raimi's hero is all about making the right choices, no matter how tough, however great the sacrifice, and Peter shuts her down cold.  Real cold.  It's a baller move, and it wraps up the movie with Peter turning to walk away alone, forced to be the hero even when that means giving up what he wants the most because it's what's right.  Not to leave us sitting on that downer-ish note however, we get one last great swing through the skyscrapers of New York filmed via the cable-suspended "Spydercam".
Bryan Singer's X-MEN deserves a lot of credit for setting fire to the modern wave of superhero movies, proving that even a slightly lower-tier comic book property had the sufficient fan-base to be a box office hit, but I don't think it could have had the sustained impact without SPIDER-MAN.  It was the one-two punch, and frankly, while it might have wound up differently, SPIDER-MAN would have had that impact with or without X-MEN.  It opened to a then unheard of $114.8 million weekend (the current opening weekend record is now STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS's $247.9 million), making it the first movie to ever have a $100+ million weekend and breaking the previous and recently set record of HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE with $90.2 million.  After SPIDER-MAN came Ang Lee's HULK, Tim Story's FANTASTIC FOUR, and Mark Steven Johnson's GHOST RIDER, and they all sucked (some of them sucked in interesting ways, but c'mon, they're not very good), but then came Christopher Nolan's BATMAN BEGINS, a movie that reboots Batman in a clearly post-Raimi's Spider-Man landscape before branching out into something else, and a few years after that, Marvel starts producing their movies independently, starting with IRON MAN.  In that, SPIDER-MAN is identifiable as one of the seismic events in the course of blockbuster movies.

Top 3 of SPIDER-MAN

1. Peter Stiffs M.J.- It's not what you'd expect from this big summer blockbuster, but Peter's denial of M.J. after the funeral is an awesome act of personal sacrifice to close the movie up on, and you get the great moment while Peter walks away and M.J. suddenly makes the connection between the kiss they shared and her iconic "upside-down" makeout with Spider-Man.
2. Final Fight- Things get really rough at the end when the Goblin and Spider-Man duke it out in the abandoned building (I seem to remember the junior novelization calling it an abandoned hospital), and maybe the brutality is a little over the top, but the bodies flying through brick walls is fun, and I like the set with sections of floorboards sitting on stilts.  Tobey Maguire gets a pretty good yelp in there too, when the Goblin lands a hard blow.
3. Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben- I guess I didn't find a good spot to mention before, but Cliff Robertson is really good as Peter's Uncle Ben Parker.  It's a small but critical role, and he's very likable in that blue collar paragon of moral virtue uncle way.  No, really.

Bottom 3 of SPIDER-MAN

1. "You Mess With One of Us, You Mess With All of Us!"- I get that it was a tribute to the solidarity of New Yorkers in the wake of 9/11, but, well, it's stupid.  "Leave Spidey alone! You're gonna pick on a guy trying to save a bunch of kids?"  Well, duh, New Yorker man!  Did he notice the Goblin was the one trying to kill a bunch of kids?  Raimi gets the New Yorkers supporting Spider-Man bit much better in the sequel.
2. Spidey's First Swing- I'm talking about the scene when he pursues Uncle Ben's carjacker while wearing the wrestling outfit.  The effects feel very rough and unfinished.
3. Interview Montage- After Peter graduates and begins his career as a professional Spider-Man, there's a montage of various New Yorkers giving their opinions as if responding to an unseen questioner with a microphone.  It's not a bad idea as a way to set up his quickly spreading notoriety, but most of the subjects, who seem to be improvising, aren't great.  "I think it's a man. It could be a woman."  Yeah, lady I'm sure that spandex is keeping Spidey's gender a real mystery.

SPIDER-MAN 2
Released 30 June 2004
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Alfred Molina, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, Daniel Gillies, Donna Murphy, Elya Baskin, Mageina Tovah
Rated PG-13 for stylized action violence.
127 minutes 

SPIDER-MAN 2 is not only the best Spider-Man movie to date, but also one of the best superhero movies ever made, ranking alongside MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, THE DARK KNIGHT and THE INCREDIBLES.  It is comic book movie perfection.  It improves vastly upon its predecessor and satisfies in practically every respect in a story that is fun and tremendously heartfelt, but never mawkish.  It's a strange beast, and even stranger in comparison to the superhero movies of today, being at once tongue-in-cheek and almost perilously earnest, unabashedly old-fashioned and small scale, settling for the threat of destroying New York City instead of the entire world.
The whole main cast returns from the first film, including dead characters Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) and Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) in cameo roles, but the movie as a whole is a large evolution from the original.  Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker/Spider-Man is still living the hard-knock life in NYC, with a crappy apartment that he can scarcely afford, a free-lance photographer job at the Daily Bugle under the abusive editor J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), and struggling to keep up as a science major in college.  On top of all that, and often interfering with everything else, he's still Spider-Manning around the city, from everything as big as taking out gun-toting thugs in the middle of a high-traffic vehicular chase to deeds as small as pulling small children out of the way of traffic.  His great responsibilities bestowed upon him by his great powers are really beginning to take a toll though, preventing him from pursuing a relationship with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), his long-time crush who's now fulfilling her dreams of being an actress, resulting in the loss of his pizza delivery job, and in the midst of his growing doubts, his powers are randomly failing at inopportune times.  One of his role models, fusion scientist Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), is being financed by Peter's friend, Harry Osborne (James Franco), in a major project to create a self-sustaining fusion reaction power source, but when a demonstration goes awry, Octavius is electrocuted and winds up with a quartet of artificially intelligent, indestructible mechanical "arms" fused directly to his spine.  Dubbed "Doctor Octopus" by the press, and brain overpowered by the intelligence of the arms, Doc Ock goes on a crime spree to fund a larger version of his experiment, one that could turn all of New York into a black hole if destabilized like the first experiment. 

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies are clearly influenced by the Richard Donner and Richard Lester Superman movies of the '70s and '80s, and SPIDER-MAN 2 returns to the SUPERMAN II plot point of a superhero attempting to forsake their powers and live an ordinary life.  While more vague about the details, SPIDER-MAN 2 pulls it off a lot more smoothly, turning the loss of Spider-Man's powers as a psychological issue rather than a conscious choice that is later reversed.  Ultimately, it comes down to a conscious choice for Peter to decide whether or not to perform heroics as Spider-Man, but the creeping doubts and frustrations he's already feeling are resulting in an involuntary failure of powers.  His conflict is also more clearly defined, as even while attempting to live an ordinary citizen's life, he can't avoid the intrusions of a hero's conscience.  In one moment that's actually a pretty dark move, Peter pauses in conflict about whether to help a student being mugged in an alleyway, but that time, he opts to just pass by.  Later, he charges into a raging apartment complex fire to save a child, but without his powers intact, and even against the odds he saves the child, only to learn later there was still a fatality.  Especially in contrast to the recent BATMAN V SUPERMAN, SPIDER-MAN 2 is an excellent example of a truly heroic character.  Peter doesn't wait until his choice to not be Spider-Man affects him negatively on a personal level.  It's when he realizes how much people need him, not just to rescue those in harm's way, but even just as a symbol of goodness, that he realizes that it's more important for him to do right than to pursue his more personal dreams.  However, after his decision is made, evil does strike on a personal level, as Harry, still seething from the death of his father (for which he holds Spider-Man responsible) makes a deal with Octavius for resources in exchange for Spider-Man, and Octavius kidnaps Mary Jane in order to force Spider-Man to show up.

It's not exactly morally black-and-white, but it's not at all morally ambiguous either.  It's unabashedly uplifting and morally confirming, and unusually family/kid-friendly for a big summer action blockbuster.  I mean, it's not quite the latest production from Walt Disney Animation, but you could comfortably take an 8-year-old to it, maybe even a sturdy 5-year-old.  It's moral and reassuring, but never detracting from the complexity of its characters.  Doc Ock, the most iconic villain of Spider-Man's famous rogues gallery, as portrayed by Alfred Molina, is one of the best screen supervillains and tremendously sympathetic.  The "nerd bonding" scenes between Peter and Otto are silly but endearing, ("Did Bernoulli sleep before he found the curves of quickest descent?"), and Molina's warm sensibilities help make the 'goofy dad' persona feel genuine and really likable.  As a villain, while he possesses a diabolical wit, he's not motivated by an agenda of evil or conquest in the usual sense.  He is singly motivated by something as personal and inoffensive as fulfilling a dream to provide sustainable energy for the whole world, but where he's gone wrong is in his ruthless pursuit of that dream at all costs, even at the expense of every human life in the city.  He's on a path of what Ayn Rand called "rational self-interest", and in his redemption, which means more as we've seen his journey beginning with a sympathetic mentor, he chooses to make a sacrifice in favor of the greater good.  It's a direct mirror of Spider-Man's journey in the film.

The action is spectacular but on a much smaller scale than most superhero movies nowadays, revolving around two combatants, Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, and destruction that never exceeds an abandoned pier and maybe a couple blocks surrounding.  It's also less violent, sticking mostly to traditional superpower fisticuffs, and the thrills revolve primarily around the vertigo of a battle pitched against a towering wall stories over the city streets and the perils Spider-Man is intent on saving others from.  Like the first film, SPIDER-MAN 2 follows a three-fight structure featuring a trio of big hero vs. villain set-pieces, the first when Doc Ock robs the bank and escapes with Aunt May as his hostage (the level of coincidence in Peter's connection to supervillains and imperiled persons continues to strain credibility, but only if you stop to think about it), the second after Doc Ock has kidnapped Mary Jane and he and Spidey duke it out on a clock tower before continuing their battle atop an elevated train, and finally, the battle at the abandoned pier where Spider-Man rescues Mary Jane and convinces Doc Ock to help him destroy the large, unstable fusion reactor before it destroys the city.  There's also no "PG-13 money shots", scenes in most PG-13 blockbusters which deviate from the tone of violence in the rest of the film to push the boundary of the rating a little further (such as the final fight of the first film, particularly the Goblin's death).  They aren't necessary or even unwelcome really, but these movies usually have one or two, so it's notable that this movie doesn't and furthers its accessibility to families.  There is that one scene though...

After Octavius' disastrous fusion demonstration fuses his mechanical arms to his body, he's brought to a hospital in an unconscious state to have the arms and harness surgically removed, but the now-sentient arms awaken and attack the medical staff in a scene of horror that none-too-subtly hearkens back to Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy.  Without that connection, the scene is kind of terrifying, but it's also fun and kind of funny while working in the context of the film.  There are people clawing into the floor with their fingernails as they're dragged, and others spun about in the air, but he breaks in full Evil Dead mode when a doctor, held against the wall by an arm, reaches for a surgeon's version of a chainsaw which comes roaring to life as he raises it in the air, and the perspectives of the arms visual sensors as they swoop across the room calls back to the famous fly-through shots of Deadite POVs.  The arms shown breaking free from their slings above Octavius' unconscious body on the table in a wide shot is effectively chilling, however, revealing their imposing and menacing nature.
In one of the great superhero action sequences ever, Spider-Man and Doc Ock do battle atop a speeding elevated train, a somewhat simple but brilliant conceit with thrills and chills, and a scene that is based primarily in heroics as opposed to violence.  Spidey and Ock trade blows, but what it really comes down to is Spider-Man protecting the passengers when Octavius hurls a couple of clearly CGI people (it's okay, get over it), forcing Spider-Man to save them from fatal falls, and then leaping and dodging an array of obstacles to catch up with the train when the bad doctor pushes it up to maximum speed and abandons the hero to somehow stop the out of control locomotive.  It's such a great, inspiring scene of daring and spectacular movie heroism as an unmasked Spider-Man goes above and beyond to bring the train to a halt before it can go careening off the tracks.  I mean, yeah, it's a just a silly superhero movie, but it's full of great stand-up-and-cheer moments.  Maybe it's just comic book kitsch, but it's also a sincere tribute to the good guys, a standard to aspire to.  This is a definitive Spider-Man and a definitive movie superhero.

Top 3 of SPIDER-MAN 2

1. Train Battle/Rescue- It's an excellent environment for the sticky-fingered, agile Spider-Man to battle in, and for all the spectacular thrills and close-calls of combat, it's the set-piece's tremendous culmination of heroism and the power of decency that elevates it to such a high note.
2. Alfred Molina is Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus- What a seriously sympathetic villain, and yet, also fun, diabolical antics.  It's little things, like the totally random rubber band "dad joke" at the beginning of his fusion demonstration, and big things, like the self-sacrificial redemption.  This time around, they nailed the 'villain as a father figure' plot point.
3. J.K. Simmons is J. Jonah Jameson- Character actor J.K. Simmons is the secret weapon of this series as Peter Parker's shamelessly cheap and altogether unpleasant boss J. Jonah Jameson, editor of the Daily Bugle, which purchases photographs of Spider-Man from him.  With flattop hair, mustache and a cigar, he's the rare direct translation of comic book illustration to screen and a reliably funny presence throughout the series, but he shines brightest in this second installment.

Bottom 3 of SPIDER-MAN 2

1. CGI Spider-Man Swings Away- After leaving M.J. with John Jameson and pulling back on his mask, Tobey Maguire is replaced with a CG effect that could have used a little more attention.
2. CGI Lady Victim- The lady that Doc Ock pulls out of the train and throws at Spider-Man looks pretty computer-y.
3. CGI Man Victim- The man that Doc Ock pulls out of the train and throws at Spider-Man is more convincing than the woman, but it still doesn't look great.  I don't know, I'm really just nitpicking for anything here.

 
 

SPIDER-MAN 3
Released 4 May 2007
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, James Cromwell
Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence.
139 minutes

Oh boy, this is where it gets really interesting!  SPIDER-MAN 3 came out in the summer of threequels, the first of three very high profile, very expensive second sequels all released not only in the same summer season, but in the same month of May 2007.  It was the second best of the trio.  I'm a really big fan of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END, but SHREK THE THIRD is dumb.
It's the weakest of the trilogy, kind of mangled and all over the place, but even for all its failures, it fails in an endearing sort of way.  It straddles a line between solid popcorn entertainment and wacky 'bad in a good way'.  Part of the movie's significant shortcomings are attributable to Sam Raimi's and his brother Ivan Raimi's story as it initially stood, but a large part of it also thanks to pressure from the suits at Sony to accommodate certain marketable characters in the story.  It's a very busy movie.
With life going pretty well for Peter Parker, Spider-Man being the toast of the city, and his girlfriend Mary Jane Watson making her Broadway musical debut in a leading role, he's become a little nerd with a big ego.  He's hoping to ask Mary Jane to marry him, but between his best friend becoming a supervillain and trying to murder him, black alien goop possessing him and making him into a bigger jerk, a new supervillain on the scene who murdered Peter's uncle, and Mary Jane getting fired from the Broadway show, a marriage proposition starts looking like an impractical one.

The biggest problem of the movie, certainly in respect to the franchise, is the decision to retcon Uncle Ben's death to make the new villain, Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), his murderer.  The idea is to make Peter's journey one of forgiveness, but the retcon nullifies the importance of the character's journey so far, like revealing it was all a dream, and the black-and-white flashbacks feel cheap and clumsy.  Marko, a seemingly slow-witted, mopey thug, has just busted out of prison, intent on getting the money to care for his sick daughter (aw) at all costs.  "I'm not a bad man,", he says, "I've just had bad luck."  Well, his luck is about to get a lot, well, 'worse' isn't exactly the right word, so let's just say interesting.  His luck is about to get a lot more interesting.  Running from police and stumbling into an experimental particle accelerator, Marko's body is fused with sand on a molecular level, turning him into the "Sandman", capable of manipulate sand and shapeshift.  The main-ish villain of the movie, Sandman is another attempt at a sympathetic, complex villain, but this time it fails, slipping into corny melodrama, and Church's portrayal of the character is too mopey to every feel like a genuine threat.  Even then, he's going around stealing large sums of money, creating lots of destruction and certainly injury if not death, but at the sentimental end, Spider-Man, after forgiving him for killing Uncle Ben, just watches as he drifts away.  He's not a fully baked character, I don't think, and it certainly isn't helpful that the movie has to satisfy so many other subplots, relegating the primary antagonist to a pretty minor role.

Harry Osborne, having discovered that Peter and Spider-Man are one and the same, and uncovering his late father's Green Goblin technology at the end of the previous film, enhances himself with the Goblin serum (with apparently less maddening effects since last time) and climbs aboard a "sky-stick" (basically a flying snowboard) to try avenging his father's death, but Peter wallops him, and after waking up from a concussion, he has partial amnesia, making oblivious to his previous thoughts of revenge, the memory of his father's death, and Peter's secret identity.  Of course, it all comes back to him later.
James Franco is solid in SPIDER-MAN and SPIDER-MAN 2, but with SPIDER-MAN 3, he's off the leash in the best way.  It's not that he's hamming it up the way Willem Dafoe did as the Goblin, but that Franco is more like the Franco we're more familiar with today from his comedies with Seth Rogen.  He's like James Dean except sleazy and ridiculous, and I love it.  As an amnesiac, it's unclear how much is supposed to be ridiculous and how much Raimi and Franco just figure a wealthy amnesiac would act after waking up from a thump to the head.  When Mary Jane calls him on the phone, he's putting the finishing touches on a still life (a still life!) painting, and while they hang out making omelettes, he cranks up the Chubby Checker on the stereo!  I love this guy.  When he gets his memory back though, he's deliciously diabolical, giving a smarmy wink to Peter after telling him how he stole his girlfriend, forcing Mary Jane into dumping Peter and giving her a little "Bravo," afterward.

Finally, there's the fan-favorite Venom, a character without a whole lot of character, but a cool design and a variation on Spidey's powers that makes fanboys cream.  Raimi's Spider-Man universe is zany enough that it works to have an asteroid kerplunk in Central Park, break open and let loose an animated black goo that follows Peter home on his moped, but things get really fun when the goo, an alien symbiote, bonds with Peter, turning his Spider-Man suit matte black and making his personality hilariously douchey.  Although Venom was actually pushed on Raimi by Sony and producer Avi Arad due to the character's popularity with comics readers, it helps further continue the parallels to the Salkind's Superman trilogy, where in SUPERMAN III, Superman starts acting like a jackass thanks to a lump of synthetic Kryptonite.  The symbiote in SPIDER-MAN 3 turns Peter into a nerd's version of a cool kid, pumping his pelvis at random women on the street, using his superpowers to dance in jazz clubs and brushing his hair over his eyes, aka, "emo Spider-Man".  It's beautiful.  Of course, it's all fun and games until it leads Peter to hit Mary Jane, making him realize he has to get rid of it, tearing the black suit off in the bell tower of a church with the help of the clanging bells which agitates the symbiote.  Broken loose from its host, the symbiote drips down onto Peter's unscrupulous photographer rival at the Daily Bugle, Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), endowing him with powers similar to Spider-Man, creating the supervillain Venom.  Considering the background of how the character wound up in the movie, it's impressive they are able to fit the storyline into the movie as well as it does, but the fully formed Venom doesn't have a lot of screen time left once his origin is covered, and its still not a character well-suited to Raimi's interests.  The character's wide, toothy mouth requires CGI, but throughout the trilogy, Raimi's insisted on unmasking his masked characters to some degree or another, as he does with Venom.  With the exception of a single brief moment, every time Venom speaks, the monstrous visage peals back to reveal freaking Topher Grace, who's not terrible, but not great, and substance or no substance, the Venom face is more entertaining to watch.  Fans who would have been keen on seeing the popular character rendered on screen, regardless of the character's merit, would be unlikely to find their fan-lust slaked.

Late in the film, once Venom shows up and has an amusing encounter with Sandman, who we haven't seen for a good long while, the supervillains pair up to kidnap Mary Jane and lure Spider-Man into a trap for the whole city to see.  Facing two villains, Peter turns to Harry for help, but after their earlier fight, Harry turns to show his badly scarred face and turns Peter down.  Now another retconned plot point rears its ugly head in the form of Bernard, the Osborne family's idiot butler played by late John Paxton, an actor who appeared in several of Raimi's films despite being barely capable of reading a line.  Bernard is not new to the series, credited as "Houseman" in each of the Spider-Man films, and only ever had a line or two in the previous installments, but after Harry turns Peter down, he comes forward with a revelation.  "Sir, if I may, I've seen things in this house I've never spoken of. The night your father died, I cleaned his wound. The blade that pierced his body came from his glider."  Okay, ignore for a second the implication that Bernard must have a crazy background as a freaking forensics specialist before becoming a useless old butler, and that there must be no way that Norman Osborne could possibly have been killed by that weapon in the hands of someone else, and that Harry, who's been nursing this grudge for years, can be swayed so easily, why the hell did Bernard take so long to reveal this information?  Why not when his boss was ruining his life obsessing over vengeance?  Why not before his boss walked into a gas chamber that turned his dad into a mass-murdering psychopath?  Why now?  Damn it, Bernard.

The gleefully cheesy reuniting of Peter and Harry in battle against the Sandman and Venom is actually kind of nice, but the climactic action is a bit of a letdown, especially that involving Spidey vs. Venom.  The movie has an awful lot of big special effects-driven action though, and it's different this time around in an interesting way.  The visual effects are extensive, a very briefly held record of 900 visual effects shots, and they're much more ambitious than the other movies, but much less convincing.  The thing is, for as artificial as the visuals look, they're wildly entertaining.  
Legendary effects pioneer John Dykstra decided not to return after the first two films and Scott Stokdyk, part of the effects teams from the previous two movies, took over as visual effects supervisor.  The difference in the appearance of this film's action from the other movies is obvious, and in the big action scenes such as Peter vs. Harry, Spider-Man rescuing Gwen, or black-suited Spider-Man vs. Sandman in the subway, they all look very much like digital compositions cobbled together out of a bit of digitally altered photography, completely CG elements, maybe models.  They don't look quite like people, or quite like the CGI doubles used in earlier films, and they certainly don't seem to be occupying the same space together.  And yet, the choreography of the effects is a ton of fun, such as the shot moving along with Spidey as he dodges and springs off of chunks of debris on his way to catching Gwen.  It's kinetic and not at all subtle, and I just get a kick out of it.
I guess that's what SPIDER-MAN 3 comes down to.  It's pretty shaggy, doesn't feel completely congealed, but it's endearing and weirdly very entertaining, partly in spite of its flaws, but partly as a result of them.

Top 3 of SPIDER-MAN 3

1. Emo Peter Parker!- I wasn't kidding about loving emo Peter Parker.  I love him.  It's ridiculous in the most fun way, and even when he thinks he's pretty cool, Peter Parker is still a huge dork!  Let's have a sampling of some of his best lines; right before blowing off half of his best friend's face (a pretty fun, and relatively violent action scene in this series): "Look at little Goblin Jr.  Gonna cry?"  On his way to reveal Eddie Brock's photo as fake, "I'm gonna put some dirt in your eye," and when Eddie pleads with him not to expose him, "You want forgiveness? Get religion."  Oh my gosh, it's so good, and we're not done yet.  Flirting with the Daily Bugle receptionist Betty Brant (played by Elizabeth Banks), "I'd love to shoot you sometime," (at which point Jameson bursts out, "Miss Brant?! That's not the position I hired you for!").  Turning up at the jazz club where M.J. works just to piss her off, he slips some money to a waitress and whispers in her ear, "Find us some shade, hot legs."  Oh, just when M.J. is about to start singing, he pops up at the piano and starts showing off.  The best of it is the montage though, where he throws his feet up on the desk in his new Daily Bugle office, and is talking on the phone while the landlord's daughter feeds him cookies, and of course, the brand new suit that he busts out of the store with and starts strutting his stuff.  Seriously, I don't understand the haters, because this stuff is amazing.
2. Peter vs. Harry- One of those very digital-looking but thoroughly entertaining action sequences, this big, spectacular fight comes pretty early into the film.  I like the idea of Peter being forced to fight in his suit along New York City skyscrapers, and while it's never as personal as it could be (that comes later, but when they're both acting like a-holes), it's genuinely exciting.
3. James Franco is Harry Osborn/The New Goblin- I guess there might be a level of irony to my appreciation of this movie, but my enjoyment of it is truly sincere.  James Franco is going full Franco in this movie, and it's just too much fun.  There isn't much emotional connection with his character, even while it's certainly intended, but somewhat as an antagonist in this installment, he's taking a turn to do his own version of Willem Dafoe's over-the-top performance.  His best scene is when he's in the diner eating the pie and being a dick to Peter about M.J.  "So good!"

Bottom 3 of SPIDER-MAN 3

1. Uncle Ben's Death Gets Retconned- The new development that Flint Marko killed Uncle Ben undercuts some of the best moments of the previous movies, and they way they present it, with grainy black-and-white flashbacks, is lazy.  I dislike the whole idea.
2. Thomas Haden Church is Flint Marko/Sandman- I like Thomas Haden Church in a lot of movies, but this is not one of them.  His backstory is too schmaltzy, and his character is such a self-pitying sad sack, it's difficult to feel bad for him.
3. Venom- For a character that was pressured into the story, Raimi does really well as integrating the alien symbiote that becomes Venom into the story, but once it breaks off of Peter and becomes Venom, the character is all hype and no payoff.  While I realize that the character of Eddie Brock is supposed to be annoying and sniveling, Topher Grace is maybe a bit too unlikable in the role and as Venom, he's still more annoying than intimidating, not helped by the peeled back face design.

Images via Columbia Pictures