18 years of Tobey-Man... looking back on Raimi's Spider-Man

I've often gotten inheated arguments with friends on who has been the Best Live Action Spider-Man. Long story short Tobey Maguire is the best Peter Parker. Andrew Garfield is the best Spider-Man. Tom Holland while he's not the best Peter Parker or Spider-Man is the only one who had the balance between Peter and the Spidey nailed.

Looking at Sam Raimi's Spider-Man through a 2020 lens is an unfair assessment to the movie. Nowadays people find it corny with odd dialogue, and a bit unnatural in its portrayal of New York. And they would be right from a certain point of view. This was one of the earlier comic book movies at the beginning of the revolutionized superhero movie genre. We have to keep in mind that this is practically a couple years after the disaster that was Batman and Robin how long before the beginning of what we know as the MCU had even been a thing. The distinguished competition hadn't even released the Nolan trilogy... so I mostly coherent superhero movie what's a breath of fresh air when what we had to compare it 2 was Batman and Robin... or straight to VHS schlocky B movies.

Yes Sam Raimi's Spider-Man is corny, but it's intentional. It's trying to be a silver age comic book but on the big screen. That's the reason for the "Gosh golly, gee willikers" dialogue. to be fair Sam Raimi captured that Essence in the movie. Also while trying to be a 1960s comic book in a modern setting some changes had to happen. I don't necessarily agree with all the choices mainly the modernized look for the Green Goblin. Especially when THIS was considered before the Power Ranger look for Norman...

Now more than ever I question Why Kirsten Dunst was cast as MJ, when she was a perfect Gwen Stacy...
Now that I said that Dunst could be a perfect Gwen Stacy just picture her and Dafoe reenacting Sins Past... don't hate me... casting Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn was a genius idea. The only two casting choices that serve fast that for was Osborn are Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 and J K Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. Under being brutally honest the only questionable casting Choice was Topher Grace as Venom but that Spider-Man 3 so we don't talk about that.

 But going back to the movie itself; it has this charm that sucks you in. It does a mostly decent job of balancing Spider-Man and Peter Parker's screen time. Many if the Peter scenes are awkward, like early Super nerdy Peter Parker, but like Peter, they have their charm. The Spider-Man seems suffer a little bit because Spidey is too much like Peter Parker. This Spidey is a bit too serious for his own good.

As awkward as this whole scene is... (ignore the Dummy that Dunst is holding as wind blows in the wrong direction for a sec.) It has its charm AND it was the first time we saw Spider-Man doing whatever a Spider-can...

All we had before this was the 70s Spider-Man tv series.


But like Richard Donner did for Superman, Raimi did the same for Spider-Man.


And no Uncle Ben death scene can top this... to this day I get teary when watching this. First time I bawled my eyes out more than I did when Aeris died the first time.

Despite its flaws the movie did what it was intended to do: give us a Spider-Man origin story and the universe of characters to care about... it's a shame that after Spider-Man 2 Sony got too greedy and screwed things up.