Spider-Man 3 made
it all too easy for detractors to focus on what Sam Raimi got wrong in bringing
the web-slinger to the big screen. That is unfortunate, seeing as how he had a relatively solid track record up to that point. The first Spider-Man
film kicked the superhero revolution into high gear, proving the genre’s appeal
to be much broader than anyone had previously thought. Spider-Man
2 is arguably the greatest film of its kind ever made. Yet, even those films had their share of
missteps. Among the more nonsensical decisions
made was to cover up William Dafoe’s wonderfully expressive face with a plastic
mask/helmet hybrid. That design ran
contrary to the one in the comics, where Norman Osborne sported a close fitting
rubber mask more akin to something out of Mission:
Impossible.
