The recent ‘Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness’ has brought us back to Sam Raimi after a long time of absence, and has brought him back as lively and playful as we had not seen him for a long time. A fun installment to deliver to your superheroic canonwhich figures without a doubt in the pantheon of the mesh genre in general thanks to its different approaches.
Depending on your degree of tolerance for the macabre and twisted, ‘Darkman’ is undoubtedly at the top of the director’s approaches to the genre. Although the work that has received the most applause, and for which his name is moderately known by recent generations, is his trilogy of ‘spider-man‘. said work is more relevant today due to the resurgence of the director and the 20th anniversary of the first installment. And now we can get them all back on HBO Max.
With great power comes great responsibility
Fans of the character no doubt celebrated his work, pulling off the uneven third film, though Raimi came close to not being given the role of director, or at least that impression was left after his first interview for the job. Sony had been looking for a long time how to exploit the on-screen rights of this character after acquiring them from Marvel, and the search for filmmakers was exhaustive. At the same time, people like james cameron she was interested in bringing the character to the screen, with a script already written by him that emphasized the adolescent aspects of the character.
Something of that remained in the final script of ‘spider-man‘, especially aspects like the fabrication of spider webs as part of the character’s powers that were intended to be a clear analogy of puberty. But Raimi takes the opportunity to do a first approach to the maturation of the character, approaching adult life while discovering his role with his new abilities. And hence the great eternally quoted phrase.
Raimi holds back some of his push for the film to approximate an effective ’90s blockbuster — though he clearly arrived with the decade already over. And, even so, not a few escape them comical details when it comes to having images the discovery and rise of Spider-Man, giving the film a visual dynamism that marries the vital frenzy that the character lives. The casting is also one of the great successeswith the notables Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and especially Willem Dafoe like the Green Goblin taking their respective characters to the streets.
The Spider-Man Trilogy: Heroic From Start To Finish
Everything is so successful, and the genesis of the hero is so exemplary, that it was difficult to overcome that effort. But it was done. ‘Spider-Man 2‘ get to be funnier, more mature, more heroic and more Raimi – especially in the famous operating room sequence that shows the “birth” of Doctor Octopus.
Taking the iconic line of comics in which Peter Parker gives up being Spider-Man introduces high interest conflicts, adult life crises, financial problems and genuine, almost adult drama. A triumph in all aspects, from the emotional to the pure spectaclewith several of the most iconic sequences of the saga, so it is logical to speak here of one of the best superhero movies ever made.
That’s why it’s so strange what happened in ‘Spider-Man 3‘, where Sony chose to limit Raimi’s creative possibilities after giving him more freedom with each film. The forced introduction of Venom or the acceleration of the conflict with Harry Osborn are plot elements that, although they have a certain thematic sense with the corruption of the protagonist, are an impediment for the film to flow and work. Ironically, the moments that have aged the best are the ones that were most criticized at the timeAs are the hilarious montages in which Spider-Man embraces his moral corruption and decides to enjoy it.
At the very least, an irregular film that ended up as a somewhat unsatisfactory closing. Even so, estimable, especially for artistic decisions that today certain franchises dodge -or worse, play from an ironic distance because they are “smarter” than that-. Enough for the trilogy to still maintain the status of one of the best superhero sagas in history.