Yeah it's complicated ain't it?
I'm probably not as big of a Spider-man fan as many of the people here, which is why I'm not as skeptical over the film. My reaction to the reboot was "WTF. Who is Andrew Garfield???"
Then a few months later, I randomly see three of his films and then I'm saying, "this guys if frakking awesome!".
Honestly though, i was about 11 or 12 yrs when Spider-man first came out and I gotta say, I was an idiot of a kid. Sure, I liked the films because it was Spider-man on the big screen and the action sequences were great, but even then there wasn't something about Tobey that I didn't like. Fast forward a decade, there's a reboot of the Spider-man films which I am intensely excited about and here I am sometimes borderline hating on the Raimi films. Why is that? well, I'm older now..I'm pretentious and I expect more from a film than just good action sequences and decent-good, yet corny acting.
I'm not a complainer and I'm not a troll who feels the need to waste my time posting my hate for something, but I'm also not someone who will so strongly hold onto films from my dear childhood. Even though the Raimi films were pretty flawed IMO, they were Spider-man films and it was just awesome to see Spider-man being done better than decently. That said, they are just films to me. I have my dislikes about them, which have become more clear as I've grown older and since this new film looks to be much better, I will have no qualms in voicing my dislikes for the older ones.
Not sure if my mentality makes sense though.
even though I was younger my opinion of the trilogy has remained pretty consistent. SM1 was a good not great movie. SM2 was utterly amazing and SM3 was an entertaining but ultimately disappointing movie.
I think that it will take something very special INDEED for webb's spiderman to surpass SM2 (imho).
everytime I see a great movie (in the wake of SM2) I always think, 'well that definately has topped SM2' (examples; batman begins, iron man, xmen first class) and every time I watch SM2 again I think, 'nope, still doesn't top it'.
the only exception for me is TDK, I watched TDK and SM2 side by side and TDK definately takes it (despite TDK being riddled with holes).
the reason why I hold SM2 so highly is the story of the hero and the supporting cast.
the guys life is being destroyed by being a hero, but he is reminded that he has a choice and he CHOOSES not to be a hero and everything is great.
but he sees standing idly by has caused people to get hurt or even die.
and if that wasn't enough, you see his best friend descend into darkness and all the while blaming peter for not being there. you see the good doctor lose everything he holds dear but still holding onto the dream of making the world a better place (with free energy).
for me the high point of the movie is when peter says 'am i not supposed to have what 'I' want.
a simply BRILLIANT movie and all the people in the world are not going to convince me it is a cheesy children's romp.
I preferred that movie to the frankly DULL batman begins (and it's AWFUL 3rd act).
I preferred that movie to iron man (even though that movie runs it very very close). I just prefered peter's inner conflict to the redemption story of tony (just, it's really close).
I preferred SM2 to xmen first class (again, just!) I was fascinated by the friendship of prof. x and magneto but again the inner conflict of peter gave it the edge for me.
so, to cut a long story short, saying a movie is cheesy doesn't make it so, or if it IS cheesy then maybe I like cheese afterall comics are cheesy. I think SM1 is 'okay' and SM3 is disappointing but for me SM2 is the second best superhero movie ever made.
some people are anticipating that SM2 (93% on rotten tomato/83 on metacritic for comparison TDK is 94% on rotten tomato and 82 on metacritic) is going to blow raimi's spider-man out of the water but the bar sam has set is a high one.
that being said I am really excited for the movie and hope webb knocks it out of the park
