Fantastic

Rating: Null/10 (23 March 2012)

Overall consensus on Sam Raimi's Spider-Man franchise?
by you I only saw the third once, when it came out, so I don't remember it enough to actually judge it. But, rewatching the first two today I was reminded of how great they are. Raimi perfectly blends in cheese, camp, humor, drama, and action in one fantastic package. The comic book style is still in tact, and I noticed that unlike Nolan's Batman franchise, the heart is apparent here. These films give off a good-natured, mainstream vibe. The characters are all excellently written, and so it makes it so easy to relate to them. Raimi does so much with the source material in the way it's all edited together. The first two are honestly great and perhaps as great as something like this could ever be, so why why WHY reboot (remake) this after 10 years? There's simply no reason. It's not like the trailers for the new one suggested it to be darker, because these aren't dark and yet their dramatic moments hit hard.
I hate to say it, but I do think that Raimi did more to this franchise than Nolan ever did to the Batman one. People like to criticize Nolan's writing, but I think the reason why his films' flaws are more apparent on rewatches is because of his direction style. Technically amazing, both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but as much as he tries he can't make the smaller moments count. Maybe it is his screenplays, or I simply don't know. My point is, after The Dark Knight people forgot all about these films (and because the 3rd left a bad taste). People like giving TDK credit for being dark and complex, and while it's true that it's tone is different than others of the sort, I think Raimi's films have a lot more to them. I simply just don't know why a reboot happened.