Favourite Spider-man film?
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MaximumMadness — 10 years ago(September 14, 2015 07:44 AM)
The Sam Raimi and Marc Webb films, while focused on the same characters and based on the same iconic comic book series, are definitely apples and oranges when it comes to style and tone, and are definitely more reflective of both their respective "modern" social/pop-culture eras (10 years of time between their respective debuts definitely lead to a lot of changes), and of their director's quirks and sensibilities. Raimi's film are more "timeless" and "magical" and "whimsical", and very much reflect his love of the earlier comics, whereas Webb's films are more "grounded" and "realistic" and "modern."
It's a lot harder to give an honest comparison than most will admit. (Because most people have personal prejudices that make them favor one series over the other.) But I honestly really enjoyed both series or at least the intent and effort behind both series. And I feel like I could be fair about my overall ranking without saying stupid-fanboy crap like "RAIMI FTW, LOL-ZERS!" or "WEBB ALL TEH WAY! RAIMI SUCZ!" or any of the other infantile crap I see fanboys going through.
So, my list would go
1-
Spider-Man 2
10 out of 10.
This is without any doubt at all. Sam Raimi's
Spider-Man 2
is undeniably the best film about the wall-crawler to ever be released, and I honestly have doubts if it will ever be topped. It nailed every character, every facet of the storyline, was very well constructed, and extremely well performed and directed. It's up there with the best of the best in terms of comic-book adaptations.
2-
Spider-Man
8 out of 10.
3-
The Amazing Spider-Man
8 out of 10
The number two and number three spots are where things get a little hard, as I feel both Raimi's original and Webb's reboot are for the most part very much in-line with one-another in terms of their high quality and good intent. Both great films, but also films of quite a few flaws.
That being said, I do think Raimi's original is holding up
slightly
better as an overall cohesive film experience. The pacing, overall narrative structure and particularly the development of the villain is much stronger in the 2002 film, and Raimi's sort-of timeless sense of whimsy about the character doesn't leave it feeling as instantly dated as Webb's film is. Raimi's movie honestly feels like the sort-of film that could have been made at any time in the past 50 years. Webb's is definitely a 2012 movie, and I think that does aid in Raimi's movie feeling a bit more fresh so many years later.
Not to say that Webb's film is necessarily inferior, though. In fact, there are things it does better, in particular the development of Gwen Stacy, who is a much more fascinating character than Mary Jane.
I was tempted to try and make the 2/3 spots a tie but, I just have to give that SLIGHT edge to Raimi. His film (at least in my eyes and those I know) is holding up splendidly even over a decade later. Sure some effects and a few references are tacky and slightly-dated (Macy Gray Ugh), but the overall film experience feels very much like an important and timeless one.
4-
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
5 out of 10.
5-
Spider-Man 3
5 out of 10.
I will openly admit that while both technically bad and heavily flawed films, I also find both to be guilty-pleasures, and am willing to give it a slight cut of slack with my scores. (Yes, 5 out of 10 is probably two high for either film but I think both have enough aspects that work to make them worth seeing and not totally able to be dismissed.)
That being said, Webb's
Amazing Spider-Man 2
definitely has the edge here, and I'm more than willing to admit it's a better film overall.
Both are obvious products of too-many-cooks-will-spoil-the-broth. And both are sadly the obvious product of studio and producer interference. Raimi's
Spider-Man 3
was literally forced to eject key characters to make room for Venom at the pressure of producers, and they were also forced to shoehorn in more characters and sub-plots that weren't part of his original story, leading to the convoluted mess we saw on-screen. (Trust me, the original storyline the Raimi's had worked on was a LOT more solid before the studio and producers stepped in.)
And Webb was forced to turn his effort into a glorified commercial for Sony's then-planned "Amazing Spider-Man Cinematic Universe." Hence, Webb's film became overstuffed with seed-planting for future sequels and spin-offs, which gave it many of the same problems as Raimi's film.
But that being said, there are a lot of things I enjoy about both films.
Spider-Man 3
has the magnificent "Birth of Sandman" sequence (which is still my favorite visual sequence in all five films), some wonderful action, a lot of great quirky character-humor, and even if it was lost at times due to studio interference, it had an overall arcing theme that affected every character and tied the experience together into a single somewhat coherent storyline. (Which Webb's film lacked, because it was more of a jumble of unrelated sub-plots -
coreyjdenford — 10 years ago(March 05, 2016 07:06 PM)
These are my favourites IMHO
- Spiderman 2
- Spiierman
- The Amazing Spiderman
- Spiderman 3
- The Amazing Spiderman 2
Just hope the Tom Holland Spiderman won't be a massive let down bring on Captain America: Civil War and then Untitled Spiderman Reboot (2017).