The Definitive X-Men Watch Order

Hello, friends!

With the release of X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Fox’s time with the X-Men franchise has ended, for better or for worse. While it will probably be several years still until Marvel Studios brings their take of the merry mutants to the big screen, I thought now was a good time to revisit the series that could arguably be considered the starting point of the superhero movie era we find ourselves in now.

Fox’s X-Men have certainly seen their share of highs and lows over the years. Having a franchise consisting of a dozen films from a variety of creative teams is bound to do that; they can’t all be winners. Nevertheless, between the main entries and spin-offs, I do feel the X-Men franchise has managed to bat 500. But that is an article for another day. Today is for a list agnostic of quality.

Consistency between films in the X-Men franchise have never been a priority to Fox. For the most part, the studio allowed the creative teams behind the films to use whatever characters they want and only loosely connect the entries to each other. This has caused many continuity errors that resulted in Bryan Singer and team to have Wolverine go back in time to create a new timeline to start over. Even then, the films continuously contradicted each other. However, if you don’t concern yourself with the finer details and not be as picky when it comes to the cohesion between films (like I was for a while), each film becomes much more enjoyable.

As I said, Fox created a dozen films in this franchise: seven main entries, three Wolverine films, and two Deadpool films. You could watch them in release order but I think there is a better way. Having gone through all of the films again, I think I have come up with the definitive watch order that provides the best flow from entry to entry. Logan, however, is particular among the other movies on this list in that I feel it can be slotted in several different places and still work with the films around it. I will talk about that when the time comes.

Now, onto the list!

X-Men

I’m pretty sure I don’t need to explain why this is where you should start. My review.

X2: X-Men United

Direct sequel to X-Men. My review.

Side note: I will admit I don’t exactly understand where the title comes from since the team spends most of the film separated…

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

X-Men Origins: Wolverine could be watched after The Last Stand (for release order) or before X-Men (for chronological order) but I think it works better after X2: X-Men United. Wolverine’s history with Col. Stryker and how he comes to have his adamantium skeleton is a focal point in X2, so it is fresh in your mind when watching this. Also, we see how this timeline’s Scott Summers meets Professor Xavier, which is a great little bonus given how unceremoniously he is eliminated in The Last Stand. Sorry, spoiler. My review.

X-Men: The Last Stand

Now that you’ve seen Wolverine’s past, it’s time to jump to the present and finish the first X-Men trilogy. My review.

The Wolverine

By watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine before The Last Stand, it let’s you jump right into post-The Last Stand Wolverine rather than going back in history then jumping forward again. The post-credits scene of The Wolverine ties into Days of Future Past which is not the next film in the watch order so it give you a little bit of a tease of what’s to come in the franchise. My review.

X-Men: First Class

First film in the series with the new cast, focusing on Charles Xavier, aka Professor X, and Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto. Also the first core X-Men film released after The Last Stand. My review.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Direct sequel to The Last Stand, The Wolverine, and First Class. Reboots the timeline. My review.

X-Men: Apocalypse

Direct sequel to Days of Future Past. My review.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Direct sequel to Apocalypse and the last of the core X-Men films. Honestly, this is an optional viewing in my opinion. With the Disney takeover of Fox, Dark Phoenix became a shell of the movie it was supposed to be. It doesn’t add anything to the characters (except maybe that Professor X did some questionable things in his past which was taken directly from the comics) and Apocalypse‘s final scene is also a fantastic point to end the core series on. But if you want to be a completionist, give this a watch. My review.

Deadpool

Takes place in the new timeline and in the “modern day” compared to the 80s and 90s settings of Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix respectively. My review.

Deadpool 2

Direct sequel to Deadpool. My review.

Logan

Logan is unique in that it can slotted after any movie Days of Future Past and onward. My review.

Depending on where you slot it, it has a different purpose:

• After Days of Future Past: Concludes Wolverine’s story. Then you get a fun cameo in Apocalypse with the Apocalypse post-credit scene acting as a call-back to explain how Laura was able to be cloned from Wolverine’s DNA.
• After Apocalypse: Logan becomes the last appearance of Wolverine on the list. The Apocalypse post-credit scene then becomes a direct lead in to Logan. Also this is where it was theatrically released compared to Apocalypse.
• After Dark Phoenix: Groups the R-rated films on list together. Watching after Dark Phoenix gives the Apocalypse post-credit scene a movie break the same way the The Wolverine post-credit scene has First Class as a buffer before Days of Future Past. And it also finishes the stories of all the characters that have headlined a film to this point.
• After Deadpool: Theatrical release order. Prevents the literal first scene of Deadpool 2 from spoiling the ending of Logan.
• After Deadpool 2: Logan is chronologically the last film in the franchise so watching it after Deadpool 2 keeps the series in order as possible. However, this is also the gloomiest of all the films so you’d be ending on a emotionally somber note. But at the same time, it is one of the best in the franchise so you would be ending on a qualitative high note. Decisions, decisions…

And there you have it my the definitive X-Men watch order! Do you agree? Would you change anything? What’s your X-Men watch order?

Until next time, cheers!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Review

Synopsis
Logan (Hugh Jackman) was born a mutant with bone claws, enhanced senses, and an incredible healing factor. When the love of his life is taken from him, he sets out on a quest for revenge.

Review
After the X-Men trilogy concluded, there was no doubt that Hugh Jackman’s was the fan favorite character. With X-Men: The Last Stand providing a definitive end to the team’s story, the next place to go is in the past. Throughout the X-Men trilogy, we’ve seen who Wolverine is under his adamantium skeleton, and even glimpsed into his past (particularly in X2: X-Men United) but it is finally time to see how he came to be the character we were introduced to in X-Men.

As I’ve said in just about every review of previous X-Men movies, Jackman absolutely nails the character of Wolverine. He has come to embody the character perfectly. At this point, it is difficult to see anyone besides Jackman as the titular mutant. In the fourth time in the role, he has the character completely figured out. Jackman’s Wolverine is caring, ferocious, and everywhere in between. But you know all that already; I’m just repeating myself at this point.

Sabretooth gets his second chance on screen, this time portrayed by Liev Shreiber. In the comics, Sabretooth is one of Wolverine’s most consistent foes, so it felt natural that he would be prominent in a film like this. However, his origins and connection to Wolverine was altered in a way that made their relationship more interesting than simple adversaries, which would be more akin to their comic book relationship. Schreiber was more than up to the task of matching Jackman’s presence. Every time they were on screen together, there was a weight to their conversations and actions that not many actors besides Schreiber would have been able to pull off opposite of Jackman.

Another perfectly cast part is Ryan Reynolds as Wad Wilson. Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, is known as the “Merc with a mouth” in the comics and Reynolds captures that aspect of the character precisely. The only downside is this greatness is very brief. X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘s treatment of Deadpool is one of the most shameful things about this film. His depiction in last act of the film is a disgrace against the character. It’s utterly terrible and deserves all the ridicule is has received.

A few casting choices is about all the good I have to say about this movie. I think what disappoints me most about this film is that despite all the action throughout and chemistry between Jackman and Schreiber, it’s not that exciting. There were cool moments for sure but outside of a handful, nothing really sticks out, even after having seen this movie several times by this point. Wolverine can be hyperaggressive and violent when on solo adventures and the same can be said for the characters who are involved in the Weapon Plus program. These characters are a black-ops hit squad and I feel the PG-13 rating wasn’t able to accurately bring this facet of the characters to the screen. A movie about mercenaries shouldn’t be timid to show violence.

I thought X-Men Origins: Wolverine was OK 😐 Despite exceptional performances from Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, and Ryan Reynolds, the script really held this movie back from reaching its full potential. It was lackluster, uninteresting, and didn’t truly let Wolverine do what he does best.

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Gavin Hood – Director
David Benioff – Screenplay
Skip Woods – Screenplay
Harry Gregson-Williams – Composer

Hugh Jackman – Logan / Wolverine
Liev Schreiber – Victor Creed
Danny Huston – Stryker
Will.i.am – John Wraith
Kevin Durand – Fred Dukes
Dominic Monaghan – Chris Bradley
Daniel Henney – Agent Zero
Ryan Reynolds – Wade Wilson
Lynn Collins – Kayla Silverfox
Taylor Kitsch – Remy LeBeau
Tim Pocock – Scott Summers

X-Men: The Last Stand Review

Synopsis
When a “cure” for the mutant gene is developed, the mutant population must decide their fate. Meanwhile, Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) is becoming more powerful and Magneto (Ian McKellen) hopes to use her powers in the fight against the humans and their cure. Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his X-Men must stop Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants before they create an all out war between the humans and the mutants.

Review
It was bound to happen. After the success of the first two X-Men movies, the studio couldn’t help themselves and stepped in and meddled in the story and development of X-Men: The Last Stand. It’s certainly not the first time it has happened in Hollywood and it was far from the last, even in the X-Men franchise. It’s hard to say how X-Men: The Last Stand would have turned out without Fox’s interference but it couldn’t have been worse than what was created in the end.

As with many sequels, this film tries to do too much. Writers Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn set out to tell the story of “The Dark Phoenix Saga”, written by Chris Claremont and one of the most beloved storylines in X-Men comics history. Anyone familiar with the source material will tell you how emotional and grandiose that story is. This movie doesn’t even begin to capture the impactfulness of the comic. This particular story for some reason becomes the B-plot of the film. How can such an iconic story be regulated to the background? That’s just criminal.

One of the strengths of using the X-Men, and more largely, mutants, is it offers many opportunities to tell philosophical stories while still being exciting. X2: X-Men United did this beautifully. The mutant cure plot, based on Joss Whedon’s “Gifted” storyline, was a perfect chance to do the same thing with different themes. However, this is not fully explored because this movie had to balance so many other aspects. Plus it introduces a ton of new characters, not unexpected given the X-Men universe’s large roster of characters. Combine this with the Gifted and Dark Phoenix Saga plots, and you just have a mess. There is just so much going on that it becomes extremely clustered and nothing gets the attention or development it deserves.

This paragraph contains spoilers. Besides introducing a plethora of the characters, it also kills off several main characters. First up is Cyclops (James Marsden). Given Marsden’s availability due to his casting in Superman Returns (the film Bryan Singer declined directing this film to direct instead), he was killed off early and, more tragically, off screen. A fan favorite character such as that does not deserve the kind of end this movie gave him. Besides Cyclops, Professor X (Patrick Stewart) also bit the dust (literally). I am still upset about Professor X being killed off. However, the reason for his death actually serves a good story purpose and has an emotional impact, so I’m not bothered by it as much.

Many blockbusters try to maximize their run time and don’t fully grasp when it becomes too much. As a result, they end up becoming too long. X-Men: The Last Stand doesn’t have that problem; it actually has a relatively moderate run time. However, this is one of the few cases where I wish the film would have been longer. As I said before, it tried to cram two stories worthy of their own films and include many new characters, and yet, among all that, ended up focusing largely on the action. If this film wanted to incorporate as much as it did, it needed more time to flesh everything out more. I appreciate the writers and directors not wanted this movie to overstay its welcome but that conservative attitude ended up hurting the film more than helping it.

I thought X-Men: The Last Stand was OK 😐 Like many sequels, it attempts to fill its runtime as much as possible. As a result, it halfheartedly tells two stories rather than tell one great story. In what would become a trend in many successful superhero franchises, studio interference created a rushed and sub-par movie that failed to keep the momentum set by its predecessors.

Trivia
Budgeted at $210 million, this was, at the time, the most expensive movie ever made. (Via IMDb)

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Brett Ratner – Director
Simon Kinberg – Writer
Zak Penn – Writer
John Powell – Composer

Hugh Jackman – Logan / Wolverine
Patrick Steward – Charles Xavier / Professor X
Halle Barry – Ororo Munroe / Storm
Famke Janssen – Jean Grey / Phoenix
Anna Paquin – Marie / Rogue
Shawn Ashmore – Bobby Drake / Iceman
Ellen Page – Kitty Pryde / Shadowcat
Daniel Cudmore – Peter Rasputin / Colossus
Kelsey Grammer – Dr. Henry ‘Hank’ McCoy / Beast
James Marsden – Scott Summers / Cyclops
Ben Foster – Warren Worthington III / Angel
Ian McKellen – Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto
Rebecca Romijn – Raven Darkholme / Mystique
Aaron Stanford – John Allerdyce / Pyro
Vinnie Jones – Cain Marko / Juggernaugt
Dania Ramirez – Callisto
Eric Dane – Multiple Man
Michael Murphy – Warren Worthington II
Josef Sommer – The President
Bill Duke – Trask
Shohreh Aghdashloo – Dr. Kavita Rao
Cameron Bright – Jimmy / Leech

X2: X-Men United Review

Synopsis
When William Stryker (Brian Cox), the man responsible for giving Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) his adamantium skeleton, arrives at the mansion to steal Cerebro, the X-Men must find out why he wants Cerebro and stop him.

Review
Like Spider-Man, my first exposure to the X-Men was the animated cartoon series of the 90s. It featured many classic X-Men characters, including Wolverine. Even though he was part of a team, Wolverine still received episodes focused on him. His mysterious past and complex personality is ripe for storytelling possibilities. X2: X-Men United takes a similar approach. While this is an ensemble movie, much of the story’s focus is on Wolverine and his past. When your movie has someone like Hugh Jackman who completely embodies your franchise’s most popular character, why not take advantage of it?

In X-Men, Jackman did well as Wolverine. However, we only get a peek of what he could do in the role. This time, he fully gets into the character, truly feeling like he is Wolverine. After leaving Xavier’s mansion at the end of the last film searching for answers about his past, he returns at the start of this film and it feels like he just went to the grocery store. He slides back in with the rest of the characters, and even acts as a guardian for the younger mutants, with ease. Whether it is the ferocity of Wolverine’s aggressiveness or the protective nature he displays, Jackman completely and effortlessly pulls it off.

The main cast from the last entry returns: James Marsden, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Rebecca Romijn. Shawn Ashmore also returns and receives a much larger role this time around, even becoming the emotional pulse for the non-Wolverine parts of the story. Between Ashmore, Paquin, and new addition Aaron Stanford, X2 provides a great look at the next generation of mutants in the ideological struggle between Professor Xavier’s X-Men and Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants. Each of these three younger stars each do wonderful bringing across their characters’ outlook to life.

However, of the new cast members, hands-down the best addition is Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler. Cumming’s Nightcrawler brings a balance to the team. His strong religious beliefs and outsider’s perspective adds another ideological wrinkle to the story. Cumming himself fits in with the rest of the cast, providing a good blend of awkward humor and emotion.

While X2 is very much a Wolverine-centered film, it doesn’t shove the other characters to the side; they still receive plenty of their own development. The love triangle between Cyclops, Jean, and Wolverine comes to a head. Jean is certainly coming into her own character and we see glances of her hidden potential and Storm is moving into more of a leadership role on the team. One of the best side-stories of the film is actually when it focuses on the three younger X-Men: Rogue (Paquin), Iceman (Ashmore), and Pyro (Stanford). Their story offers a narrative for being different when everyone expects you to be “normal,” a very relatable experience for many.

But of course, the focal point of the story is Wolverine’s past in the Weapon Plus program and how he came to have adamantium bonded to his skeleton. The story, loosely based on the graphic novel X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, which is actually not centered around Wolverine, introduces us to William Stryker, the man responsible for giving Wolverine his adamantium skeleton. We’ve seen two sides of Wolverine: a violent, animalistic side and a softer, caring side. Outside of his interactions with Rogue, we didn’t see him with the younger X-Men in the previous film. In this film, even though he is violent and has a violent past, as we see through Stryker, Wolverine is willing to be a protector and mentor to the younger generation of mutants. Not only was his backstory expanded upon in this movie but so was his character, experiencing the most growth of any of the adult X-Men.

Nightcrawler is one of my favorite X-Men characters. The opening scene showed exactly how powerful he can be if he didn’t have his morals. What’s more, after the opening, which does a great job of starting off strong and capturing your attention, this film never feels dull. Throughout the entirety of the film, I always felt engaged. Even during the quieter moments, there was something worth paying attention to or something interesting worth concentrating on. Many superhero films stumble when they aren’t focused on the action but this superhero film does not land in that pitfall.

I thought X2: X-Men United was GREAT 😀 Much like Spider-Man 2, with the characters’ origins out of the way, this sequel is free to jump right into the story without needing much exposition. Almost every character experiences some sort of growth and the film remains exhilarating the whole way through. Back in the early days of the superhero genre boom, before it really blew up, the second entries were apparently the entries of note.

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Bryan Singer – Director / Story
David Hayter – Story / Screenplay
Zak Penn – Story
Michael Dougherty – Screenplay
Dan Harris – Screenplay
John Ottman – Composer

Hugh Jackman – Logan / Wolverine
Patrick Stewart – Professor Charles Xavier
Famke Janssen – Jean Grey
James Marsden – Scott Summers / Cyclops
Halle Berry – Ororo Munroe / Storm
Anna Paquin – Rogue
Shawn Ashmore – Bobby Drake / Iceman
Alan Cumming – Curt Wagner / Nightcrawler
Aaron Stanford – John Allerdyce / Pyro
Ian McKellen – Eric Lensherr / Magneto
Rebecca Romijn – Mystique
Brian Cox – William Stryker
Kelly Hu – Yuriko Oyama / Lady Deathstrike
Cotter Smith – President McKenna
Bruce Davison – Senator Kelly

X-Men Review

Synopsis
There are people in the world called “mutants” who posses the x-gene, granting them superhuman powers. Two groups of mutants, one led by Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and one led by Magneto (Ian McKellen) are at odds with how to use their powers and co-exist with the humans around them.

Review
Let’s go back in time a little bit to the year 2000. In 2000, Batman’s film run in the 1990s had come to a halt after the Joel Schumacher films were not received well and Superman hadn’t been seen on the big screen since the late 1980s. As for Marvel comic characters, only a handful attempts in the 80s and 90s had been made to bring them to film, including Howard the Duck, the Punisher, Captain America, and Blade, with Blade being the most recent and most successful try two years prior. Enter X-Men. X-Men redefined what the superhero genre could do. X-Men showed that a superhero film could be filled both with action and character development. X-Men kicked off the superhero film boom that we are still experiencing today.

To start, X-Men boasts some impressive and spot-on casting. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as Professor X and Magento respectively are just the tip of the iceberg. Their chemistry is fantastic as the once-friends-but-now-enemies. Both actors are acting powerhouses and gave validity to a genre that many saw as niche. Famke Janssen, James Marsden, and Halle Berry all do good in their roles but they aren’t given much to do in this film.

Fox was not naive to who the star of the X-Men franchise is. Everyone knows that Wolverine is hands-down the most popular X character. When casting Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine, they probably had no idea how defining he would become in the role. Here, though, we only see glimpses of what is yet to come. Jackman does great in the role but he hasn’t quite come into it yet. However, he looks spot on like the Logan from the comics. His entrance is exciting and Jackman’s performance leaves you eager to see him return again as the amnesiac mutant.

Besides Wolverine, only a handful of characters share the screen with him. They are Cyclops (Marsden), Jean Grey (Janssen), and Storm (Berry) on the X-Men and Toad (Ray Park), Sabertooth (Tyler Mane) and Mystique (Rebecca Romjin) in Magneto’s Brotherhood of mutants. The Brotherhood mutants don’t get much development since their purpose is to serve as antagonists. On the X-Men side, they get more development but since they all share screen time pretty evenly, it’s not enough. It is just enough, however, to get a feel for the characters and understand the dynamic and relationships between them.

When a film tries to balance as many characters as X-Men has, it can become convoluted. This film prevents that by keeping the plot simple. The X-Men are trying to stop Magneto. That’s it. There’s no major twists or reveals. It’s a good versus evil plot that is traditional but not unexpected from a movie based on comic book characters. There is another plot about mutant registration that is barely explored. It’s touched on but if developed a little better, this film could have had a great philosophical angle to it as well.

A hero is only as good as its villain. This movie’s simplicity also allows Magneto to stand out as a character that wants to do things far beyond typical bad guy reasons. He cares about his fellow mutants. Experiencing the holocaust, he has little faith in humans the way Professor X does. Magneto and Professor X are less adversaries and more two people approaching the same problem from two different ideological point of views. While Magneto may be a more campy villain this time around, he’s far from one-dimensional.

I thought X-Men was GOOD 🙂 Excellent casting all around and a simple plot are by far this film’s strong points. This movie might not be the best superhero movie out there but it displayed what the superhero genre could be, setting the stage for the genre’s popularity to really explode.

Favorite Quote
Wolverine: [After putting on his uniform] You actually go outside in these things?
Cyclops: What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Bryan Singer – Director / Story
Tom Desanto – Story
David Hayter – Screenplay
Michael Kamen – Composer

Hugh Jackman – Logan / Wolverine
Patrick Stewart – Professor Charles Xavier
Famke Janssen – Jean Grey
James Marsden – Scott Summers / Cyclops
Halle Berry – Ororo Munroe / Storm
Anna Paquin – Rogue
Ian McKellen – Eric Lensherr / Magneto
Tyler Mane – Sabretooth
Ray Park – Toad
Rebecca Romijn – Mystique
Bruce Davison – Senator Kelly

Spider-Man 3 Review

Synopsis
The life of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is going great and Spider-Man is loved by the citizens of New York City. When an alien substance bonds with Peter making him more aggressive, his personal relationships begin to strain, meanwhile new information is revealed about his uncle’s killer.

Review
With both Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 being critically acclaimed and financially successful, a third film was all but inevitable. This time, however, Sony intervened and forced Raimi to include the popular Spider-Man villain Venom into the story. This began a spiral of Raimi’s heart not being with the movie like it was before, as well as create a convoluted and excessive story that the series has avoided until this point. Spider-Man 3, despite all the greatness of Raimi’s previous Spider-Man films, failed to live up to the expectations of the series.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films have done a fantastic job of showing how being Spider-Man affects Peter’s daily life, as well as exploring Peter’s relationships with Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), Aunt May (Rosemary Harris), and Harry Osborn (James Franco). Harry being the son of Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin and villain of Raimi’s first Spider-Man film, blames Spider-Man for the death of his father. After Harry finds out his best friend is also his worst enemy at the end of the previous film, it puts an obvious strain on their relationship, particularly when Harry takes his father’s villainous mantle as the New Goblin. This creates yet another layer in Harry and Peter’s relationship that we have seen develop over the last two films.

Also tying into Spider-Man’s history is Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), aka Sandman. Marko was present during Uncle Ben’s murder, the defining moment of Peter becoming Spider-Man. Again, this personal relationship is used to explore Peter’s character even more, giving him new emotional depth and growing on what has been seen from him in the series so far. Despite all the issues with this film, it did not fail to continue to grow and examine Peter’s character.

The first of many mistakes this film makes is casting Topher Grace as Eddie Brock. Eddie Brock is supposed to be a physically intimidating character, someone you don’t want to get into a fight with, even before he bonds with the symbiote. No offense to Topher Grace but I didn’t feel that; He didn’t have the build for the Eddie. Also, the way he was written did not fit the personality of the comic book version of the character. Not only was Eddie Brock / Venom miscast, but his character development was rushed as well. For a series that thus far had developed its characters and had deep and emotional back stories, it really dropped the ball on creating a truly terrifying version of one of Spider-Man’s best villains.

So far I’ve talked about three villains: New Goblin, Sandman, and Venom. Attempting to fit a trio of antagonists into a film like this only hurts all three. Harry spends most of the time in a with memory loss, only appearing as the New Goblin at the beginning and end of the film. Sandman gets an interesting story arc as a father who only wants to provide for his family, as well as ties into Peter’s history with Uncle Ben. He gets a few good moments before he disappears for a while before showing up for the final scenes. With the symbiote attached to Peter for the first two acts, Venom doesn’t appear until the final third of the film, stifling any significant development. There are just too many villains to successfully develop all of them.

While the first two films did a good job of using practical effects as much as possible, this movie fell into the same trap that many action films began falling into during this time period: it used CGI too heavily and was too reliant on it. Given the skill-set of the villains, it’s not surprising. I’m sure the CGI was good at the time, but it hasn’t aged well, especially scenes that required fully rendered people. Throughout the movie, Spider-Man has fight while falling through the air once with each villain. Not only does this feel repetitive but it showcases all the worst parts of the CGI of the film.

I thought Spider-Man 3 was OK 😐 Mark this as another case where studio intervention creates a sub-par film. With Raimi’s guidance, Sony’s Spider-Man series was on an upward trajectory. While it is doubtful Spider-Man 3 could have been a better film than Spider-Man 2, we will never know since its true potential was stifled.

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Sam Raimi – Director / Writer
Ivan Raimi – Writer
Alvin Sargen – Writer
Christopher Young – Composer

Tobey Maguire – Spider-Man / Peter Parker
Kirsten Dunst – Mary Jane Watson
James Franco – New Goblin / Harry Osborn
Thomas Haden Church – Sandman / Flint Marko
Topher Grace – Venom / Eddie Brock
Rosemary Harris – May Parker
JK Simmons – J Jonah Hameson
Bryce Dallas Howard – Gwen Stacy
James Cromwell – Captain Stacy
Dylan Baker – Dr. Curt Connors
Bill Nunn – Joseph ‘Robbie’ Robertson
Bruce Campbell – Maitre D’
Ted Raimi – Hoffman
Elizabeth Banks – Betty Brant
Elya Baskin – Mr. Ditkovitch
Megeina Tovah – Ursula