Spider-Man (2002)Â 
Spider-Man 2 (2004)Â
Spider-Man 3 (2007)Â
A sleepy and uncharismatic late twenties/early thirties Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), cosplaying as a teenager, fails to deal emotionally with his newfound spider powers while mooning over Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), who he dumps and also saves over and over and over again. He fights an enemy who coincidently is personally known to him and gained his powers in a âscienceâ accident. Which film in the trilogy is that? All of them, one after the other.
Superhero films have changed since 2002, due mainly to The Dark Knight and the MCU. The Dark Night aimed for an adult audience with themes and characters that would make sense to them. The MCU aims for a family audience, with stories, and again themes and characters that have something for kids and something for adults. But previously (and still not uncommonly), superhero films were written for children with the hope that nostalgia would tug along those who are older. So we get very simple themes that reflect a less experienced world view with characters that make sense to a ten-year-old looking forward to being a teenager. The idea in constructing these films was to find the point at which no one would feel lost or left behind. Or another way to word it: Lowest common denominator filmmaking. And thatâs Sam Raimiâs Spider-Man trilogy.
Spider-Manâs characters arenât iconic, they are simple. There are no textures. And the dialog is written to be what a pre-teen imagines the coolest thing ever would be. People make bold proclamations on what is right or of the âweâll be the best friends foreverâ variety. Itâs a power fantasy for children. And since some adults remember the old comics, they are willing to buy into that prepubescent fantasy. Itâs silly and a bit embarrassing, but if your life isnât what you wanted it to be, then I suppose indulging in juvenile dreams doesnât do any harm. But it doesnât make the material any more interesting or sophisticated.
The Teen Peter Parker… Or not.
Old-school casting doesnât help. Not only are the structure, themes, and characters in Spider-Man for kids, they are about kids, or teens. Peter Parker is a teen. Not a real teen mind you, but a Hollywood teen, but a teen none the less. And everything he does is a mirror for growing up. He feels lost, suffocated, and alone, with changes he doesnât understand. He wants to impress the girl in the most childish way imaginable. He rebels against his parents (Uncle, but same difference), and learns his lesson. Now thatâs fine for a fifteen-year-old. For a twenty-seven-year-old like Maguire, itâs pathetic. And Maguire looks every bit of his age. Yes, age inappropriate casting has been done before in Hollywood and it has always been problematic. 1936âs Romeo and Juliet was a joke with a thirty-four-year-old Norma Shearer pretending to be a young girl discovering her sexuality and romance. It just doesnât work. If you want to tell the story of a mature Peter Parker, great. But if it is a teen story, focusing on problems and experiences that apply purely to teens, than your star better look like someone who can say, âMy body is going through changesâ without making me want to back away slowly.
One could argue the age gap is less of a problem in Spider-Man 2âwhere Maguire is twenty-nineâand Spider-Man 3âwhere heâs thirty-twoâbut that only posits an older character (still far younger than Maguire), not older themes. The sequels have the same stories with the same themes. And it is still weird for a man to be speaking boysâ lines.
Not that Maguire is the only act of bad casting. All the âyoungâ actors are too old, and bring nothing with them. Dunst looks great in a wet shirt, but if thatâs all youâve got, maybe a Girls-Gone-Wild video would be more appropriate. Iâm sure James Franco can be good doing something besides play himself, but I havenât seen it, and heâs a black hole as the partial character he barely plays.
So, whatâs good about the series? Well, not a whole lot besides the villains. They are across the board 1975-era juvenile, but that makes them better than the rest of their films because they are at least lively. If you are making a dippy childrenâs film, then admit that you are making one, and with the villains, they do.
Outside of them, the franchiseâs main positive is that while it doesnât have much good, where it is weak, it isnât as weak as so many others. Yes, it is simple, but not as simple as Superman IV. The casting is wrong, but not as wrong as Batman Forever or Batman & Robin. In 2002, superhero fans had few films to be excited about. The Spider-Man trilogy ranked high among a collection of poor to terrible films where only a few were clearly good. Now, thereâs plenty of better choices, leaving these three films to stand on their own merits, and they donât have many.
Spider-Man
Peter Parker gains his powers, which he canât deal with. He saves Mary Jane three times, because that is her sole reason for existence. The villain of the week is The Green Goblin/Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), father of Peter Parkerâs terrible best friend, Harry (James Franco). Spider-Man makes money by selling pictures of himself to editor J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) because he did that in the comics.
Comic books are important! Really, really important. Thereâs nothing funny or absurd about comics. They are serious, Damn it! None of that â66 Batman stuff. No, comics are serious business. âWith great power comes great responsibilityâ is deeply important, not the trite phrase you might use to teach morality to a three-year-old that it sounds like.
Yeah.
When Nolan decided comics needed to be overly serious, he backed that by adding complexity and moral ambiguity. Raimi thinks heâs making Citizen Kane; heâs making Bozo the Clown.
To go with the SENCERITY, Raimi and team have tossed out Spider-Manâs most defining comic book characteristic: being funny. Heâs a quip machine, but not this time. Heâs moody. The movie is a solid two hours of teenage angst. Itâs daddy-issues and puppy love and growing up as a cartoon, and Raimi has decided that is never funny.
The Green Goblin armor might look acceptable in a comic (it mightâŚ) but is all Power Rangers in live action. The CGI is passable but not cutting edge for 2002, which it needed to be. Thereâs some joy to be had in Dafoeâs and J.K. Simmonsâs over-the-top performances, but I found the rest a failure in â02 and approaching unwatchable now.
What made comic book fans squee was Spider-Manâs adherence to the old comics. Its world is not ours, nor the bleakness that Nolan would bring in, but the â60s Marvel comics world, pretending to be in the 00s. Itâs nostalgia world, which sets off all those nostalgia bells, and makes those of a certain age think far more fondly of the film than it deserves.
Spider-Man 2
Peter still canât deal with his life and has a three-year-oldâs grasp on relationships. Harry is still terrible. Mary Jane is still around to be saved (three times again) and still cheating on whatever boyfriend she currently has. The villain of the week is Doc Ock (Alfred Molina).
Spider-Man was serious! So, since sequels have to ratchet up everything, Spider-Man 2 ratchets up the self-importance. Peter whines, âWhat am I supposed to do?â and I am supposed to feel sorry for him. I donât. His problems are epic if you are a child. For anyone not a child, âgrow upâ is the proper response.
The romance, again, has the maturity of a young teenâs view of the world. I hope that no adult takes any of this as accurate or they are doomed to a very sad life. And to go with that silliness, Peterâs teen angst now has a literal representation in his failing powers. It is not subtle, but then childrenâs films rarely are.
Harry has changed from the first film, delving into slimy James Franco mode, which makes him a bit less boring although no more enjoyable. Later he becomes nasty, and thatâs beyond Francoâs ability to pull off. Molina steps in as the new cartoon villain, but he does it with as much heart as the trilogy allows. Whether that is an improvement or not depends on how arch you like your evil-doers. That he really is stoppable by anyone with a gun does make his campaign of crime harder to buy than the Goblinâs. After all, Aunt May messes him up. But yeah, Iâll call him an upgrade.
Once again , the CGI is less than it should be (with a fight on the side of a building standing out). The big set piece combat on a train isnât bad (though it so overpowers Spider-Man that Doc Ock should have been dead from one punch), and has the trilogyâs only truly emotional moment, but Iâve become spoiled and it wouldnât rank in the top thirty superhero fights now, and thatâs all Spiderman 2 has to offer.
Reviewing Spider-Man 2 is pointless after writing one for Spider-Man. They are the same. Not that the first had any claim to originality, but this level of copying is extreme even for sequels. The villain is a touch better and the preaching is even more annoying (yes, yes, be a hero), but otherwise, weâve seen it all before.
And as a big fan of The Importance of Being Earnest, I find it irritating that Mary Janeâs version apparently starts late in the second act.
Spider-Man 3
In a shocking development, Peter Parker has problems dealing with his powers and his relationships. Mary Jane is still around to be saved, and to be a rotten girlfriend, though it is hard to blame her. And our villain of the week is the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), the retconned killer of Uncle Ben who fell into a science experiment. But this time thereâs a second villain in Venom, a space symbiot who happens to infect Peter and then happens to bond with yet another person Peter happens to know (Topher Grace), because all super villains are connected to Peter personally. And Harry is still around as the New Goblin so the villain pool is crowded. Plus now we have Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is both in Peterâs physics class and happens to need to be saved by Spider-Man.
Here we go again. Same verse, same as the first. Well, almost, as the Batman problem with too many villains is accelerating. None of these miscreants is on anyoneâs top ten list, although the scene of The Sandman waking up is the only time the trilogy does anything interesting cinematically. Unfortunately the rest of The Sandmanâs appearances are ripped-off effects from The Mummy (1999). Venom was forced upon Raimi by the production company and he put little work into integrating that villain with the ones he had chosen. However, the big team up at the end isnât bad.
But this is Spider-Man 3 and the only thing anyone wants to talk about is Dark Peterâs dance. Why do so many people hate it? Itâs not because it isnât fitting. Peter is (supposedly) a deeply uncool guy, so when the symbiot makes him attempt to be cool, this is what he comes up with. The scene also has the advantage of being something different in a trilogy that needs something, anything, different. But comics fans hate it.
The problem is they want the supposedly-uncool Peter to be cool. Spider-Man is wish fulfillment for people who think they deserved respect and didnât get it. So they need their hero to be respected. They need him to be cool. Making fun of Spider-Man is not allowed, and the scene makes it easy to make fun of him. The hatred has nothing to do with the scene, but with some viewersâ need for validation.
I lack ego connection to Spider-Man, and am happy for something in the movie that isn’t a repeat.
The Spider-Man trilogy has some importance in the development of the superhero film genre (though much less than Superman, Batman, Blade, and X-Men) and sold a lot of tickets. But in time it will get lost under a pile of better films.