Spider-Man 1-3 (2007)

Anyone looking to purchase this trilogy is already a fan of the SPIDERMAN movies and wants to know how they stand up in the magic of blu ray. We all know that the original SPIDERMAN was an amzing film a rare treat of exemplary action with superb acting for a change. Tobey Maguire and cast finally brought to the comic action movie acting ability that made the film believable. With Tobey Maguire was born Peter Parker/Spdiderman. We also know that with SPIDERMAN 2 the same cast and crew came together with a film that far surpassed the hugely succesful and critically acclaimed original to be the best in the trilogy. All that was good in the first was raised many notches. SPIDERMAN 3 was still a good film but certainly not a match for 1 and 2. Very enjoyable but a little lackluster in comparison.

Now for the blu ray test. All I can say is AMAZING. The source they are working from on the original is not as superb as the other two which makes the picture quality slightly grainy in its 1080p hd presentation. But this in no means is a bad thing. It is still a very vivid picture with blacks and colors strongly presented. You quickly get used to the slight grain and the film becomes the best presentation you will ever see of it. With SPIDERMAN 2 the caliber raises. All grain is gone and the picture remains crystal clear and vibrant throughout. All fight/action scenes are awesome and the entire film will leave you breathless. SPIDERMAN 3 has a picture of the great quality the same as the second film and it helps immensely to raise the quality of the film itself much higher for you will be in awe watching the richness and awe striking special effects.

With all three films the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio is of the highest quality. Dialogue is strong and crisp with all speakers in strong, heavy use for action sequences and it seems even the smallest scenes manage to work the rear speakers which is rare. These three films are at their best here and perfectly made for the high standards of blu ray. You cannot imagine how great these films appear in blu ray till you actually see them for yourself. You will never be able to view them another way again.

I do agree that the only flaw with this set is the absence of substantial special features. They do provide the 2nd disc with SPIDERMAN 3 that is all features but do not have it for SPIDERMAN 1 or 2. Having all this would have made the set perfect. So it is not perfect but it still cannot make me lower my 5 star rating for the blu ray presentation of these films is exemplary.

If you are developing a blu ray library and love these films this SPIDERMAN HIGH DEF BLU RAY TRILOGY is a definite must. Highly recommended.

...since the movies in the trilogy deserve their own reviews and have been done to death already. The low cost (even lower by $10 since I bought it) is what motivated me to buy this blu-ray disc set. I already have the special editions of all three Spiderman movies on DVD, so I wanted to see what blu-ray would bring to the home theater table, having recently bought a PS3. True, the picture quality is awesome and the audio certainly will blow you away. However, there are hardly any special features only the third disc has any to speak of. This is an underwhelming effort, considering the massive amount of space availalble on blu-ray discs. Compare, for example, the featurettes and even mini-movies on "I Am Legend".

One thing I discovered about audio selection: if you choose PCM and your receiver is not capable of processing uncompressed signals (my Onkyo only does HDMI pass-through), all you'll get is simulated surround (e.g. Dolby ProLogic). So I ended up with 5.1 and although it may not be true HD, it's good enough for my 7.1 setup. But if you're an audiophile you would have known about this already.

My summary HD picture quality: a strong 4 stars, audio quality and options: 4 stars, special features: a dismal 1 star hence the overall 3 star rating. I guess for the price, this set is not too bad, but considering the wealth of possibilities for the Spiderman franchise, it fell short of my expectations.

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Spider-Man 1 & 2 Does not include any of the amazing behind the scenes content originally released on the DVDs. Why would a studio release two extraordinary FX films of this magnitude and incredible production values on a format that can hold so much information, and fail to include the extras? If you're a fan of behind the scenes content, hold onto your DVDs.

Movie A+. Blu-Ray value for Spider-Man 1&2 FAIL.

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This review is for the Spider-Man: Ultimate High Definition trilogy Box Set.

It contains the following films: "Spider-Man" (2002), "Spider-Man 2" (2004), "Spider-Man 2.1" (an extended cut of Spider-Man 2 featuring some new sequences, and some entirely different alternate scenes) and "Spider-Man 3" (2007).

As for the films, I'd rate them as such:

"Spider-Man" ... 8 out of 10

"Spider-Man 2/2.1" ... 10 out of 10

"Spider-Man 3" ... 7 out of 10 (I didn't hate it, it had a charm and a lot of good factors, despite it's obvious large faults.)

The Blu-Ray image is pretty incredible. I already owned all three on DVD, but I wanted to upgrade, as these films deserve the High-Def treatment. All three look significantly better, compared to their standard-def DVD counterparts. The first "Spider-Man" is the least dramatic upgrade, but the image is still clearer, sharper and more detailed... I was able to see a lot of things I missed on DVD (I didn't realize how much of the image was lost on DVD from compression and whatnot, because every shot I was seeing things I hadn't seen since the movie theater in 2002)so even though it wasn't the greatest Blu-Ray picture quality, it was still definitely worth the upgrade.

The second and third films are where the High-Def image pays off, though! I had just watched the second and third films days before this set arrived on DVD, and it is like night and day. "Spider-Man 2" was astounding in terms of how much more I could see in the image. You felt like you could reach into the movie. Textures looked real (DVD won't give you that), colors were brighter, small things (sparks, bits of glass, sweat, water) had astonishingly more detail. It was a huge upgrade. And "Spider-Man 3" was just as incrediblewhat really got me is that you could literally see things that are invisible on the DVD (Ex. You can see every single speck of sand during the Sandman scenes, and when we see the news broadcast towards the end of the film, I couldn't see the "horizontal TV lines" on DVD at all, whereas here, they're clearly visible.).

I can't comment much for sound, as I just play my sound through the TV speakers, but judging from that, everything is mixed well.

The special features are where this review almost slipsthe only special features are those from "Spider-Man 3", which felt a bit odd. They are cool features, but it seemed like a missed opprotunity.

But all in all, the price (which has come down a lot) makes it worth it. You can find really good quality used or even new copies in the $25-$35 range, so I can't complain much about the featuresthe price is right, the quality is amazing, and what features there are, are very solid.

I'd highly recommend this set! Great films.

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Following the cult classic status of Blade and the surprising box office success of X-Men, Marvel decided to lend out the rights of another one of their most cherished characters. Based on the success of the cartoons, this was sure to pull in a very specific demographic, but I doubt they expected it to be as popular as it became. It surpassed the success of X-Men, and ushered in a decade that would have many more comic book, cartoon, and toy movies set records. For too many years, these types of properties did not get the respect they deserved as real dramatic and action movies, and not just dumb superhero fun. Spider-Man finally got that due respect. The weekend it came out, my focus was on Star Wars Episode II, but after I saw Spider-Man I was blown away. Like many others of my generation, my fandome really started with the first Spidey film, and then blossomed into collecting stacks upon stacks of comics. The visual effects were not the standard for the time, especially with the aforementioned Star Wars film coming out, but they were still pretty damn good. The music was fantastic, thanks to Danny Elfman (the man behind The Simpsons music, and so many other great film scores). Director Sam Raimi created a truly stylistic and visual masterpiece. Honestly, I'm not a fan of the Evil Dead series. I doubted a director best known for horror movies would do the material justice, but he did not disappoint.

Neither did the cast. All of the actors were fairly new to me. I had no idea who most of them were, except Kirsten Dunst I knew from Small Soldiers (I was a child). But I always applaud and appreciate big blockbusters that turn lesser names into household names. Tobey maguire and Dunst had a chemistry that really dold the complex relationship of the two iconic characters they were portraying. To this day, my favorite character, besides Spider-Man, is definitely JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. If ever there were an actor born to play a specific supporting role, it was him. Willem Dafoe was great as Norman Osborn. As the serum changed him from a desperate businessman to a conflicted monster, the not so subtle nuances of Dafoe's performance really began to shine through. If only Green Goblin's costume had less of a silly looking design, then his character would be one of the premier villains in Marvel film history. As it stands, Goblin's costume only hurts the film by making it seem more campy than it really is. It serves as a constant reminder that you're watching a cartoon with real people acting it out. Nevertheless, Spider-Man should definitely be creditted as the film that sparked the hype and interest that comic book adaptations get today. If it were not for Spider-Man (as well as Blade and X-Men), I doubt that movies like Watchmen, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic 4, Ghost Rider, Punisher, Dare Devil, or any of the other countless comic book and superhero flicks would have been taken seriously enough to be converted from script into film.

And the Blu-ray presentation of this old favorite of mine was night and day upon my discovery of the disc. I had seen the DVDs countless times, but it wasn't until my eyes were laid upon the BD that I appreciated every inch of every frame as they were shot. Detail is remarkable. Color is rich. It truly is like watching the movie for the very first time.

Spider-Man 2 is what fans dream about when the sequal to a movie as fantastic as Spider-Man is announced. Topping a film as great as that one is a definite challenge, but it seems to happen more and more each passing year. Sequals like this one, X2: X-Men United, T2: Judgement Day, The Dark Knight, and others all have one thing in common. Beyond just being a "sequal", they managed to outdo their predecessors in almost every way. Spider-Man 2 is not only a great sequal, it is one of the best comic book movies ever made. It doesn't go for the mature adult feel that The Dark Knight has. On the contrary, Spider-Man 2 maintains that corny camp and tongue-in-cheek humor that made the first one so good. Sure some of the dialogue is cheesy at times, and the action is never tries to be realistic, but isn't that why we go to these movies? To be virtually thrilled to the point of exhaustion? Okay, maybe that's taking it a bit far, but my point remains that these films don't need to strive for realism. Their fantasy elements and use of childlike imagination and wonder are what make them so great.

Its about a man with spider-like abilities fighting a man with mechanical tentacles attached to his back. The only thing I felt was lacking in TDK, is very abundant in Spidey 2. There is great humor, and the movie has the overall feel of an actual comic book. I also got a sense of the director and writers respect for their source material, but not being afraid to have fun with it. The ending of this film gave me chills the first few times I saw it. It wasn't until Spider-Man 3 actually came out, that the end of Spidey 2 lost some of its magic. Spider-Man 2 is in a solid second place on the list of my favorite comic book movies of all time. Right above films like The Avengers, Sin City, Iron Man, etc. There is really only one thing I didn't like about the movie. There were too many close-ups of random women screaming. It was okay once or twice, but not four or five times. That's minor though. This movie was a fine achievement. As for the Blu-ray transfer. Is it as great as the first one's? An emphatic yes! Even better, in fact. The adundance of detail and clarity are remarkable. This disc is a reference disc to show how amazing catalogue blockbusters can look.

As far as Spider-Man 3 goes, I want start off by saying that I like this movie. Probally more than you do. With that said, I'll also add that it does serve its purpose, which is to prove that any Spider-Man movie will have great special effects, fine character development, okay acting, and make a shitload of money. Spider-Man 3 is a good film in its own right, but only a decent one when put in the tall dark shadow of its amazing, and incredibly revolutionary predecessors. It does not add much of value to the franchise, aside from introducing some of the most popular characters in Spidey's publication history. That said, those characters aren't given the attention and respect they deserve. They feel more like late additions that were shoehorned in. Overall the movie was not terrible though. It was definitely better than both of the Fantastic 4 movies, Ghost Rider, Elektra, and Daredevil, as well as some other less than savory comic book adaptations. The only thing that really held this movie down were the, not one, but two unnecessary dance scenes, and underdeveloped characters. The worst of the two dance scenes was Peter walking down the street like he was in a music video. The second dance scene reminded me of the jazz flute scene in Anchorman. That should never be. Those scenes made me feel like Sam Raimi was too comfortable with the fact that the movie would make alot of money, and there was no major competition in the superhero/comic book movie department, besides a few hits and a couple of upcoming challengers.

That may have been passable in the summer of 2007, but now we have The Avengers saga and The Dark Knight trilogy that have set the bar so high that movies like them should be treated with the utmost respect and care. The addition of Gwen Stacy seemed rather pointless to me, unless they planned on ellaborating on the love triangle between her, Peter, and Mary Jane from the comics in later installments that never came to fruition. The running time was noticably longer than the previous two films, and it felt like a bloated Thanksgiving turkey. There's no reason the two dance scenes should have made the final cut. Some editors and directors don't understand what truly qualifies as a "Deleted Scene". Aside from the dance scenes, perhaps the biggest issue I have with this film is the treatment of my all-time favorite Spidey villain, Venom. Venom was so obviously a late addition to the script that it made me mad. And in addition to that, he was not the towering, manacing presence that we know him as. I must admit though, I loved the wonderful, yet very predictable team-ups of Spider-Man and the New Goblin versus Sandman and Venom. That really brought something to the movie when it was in desperate need of a kick-start. Spidey 3 was not the disaster it has so often been called by geeks and armchair critics alike, but it wasn't an achievement either.

Now for the Blu-ray treatment of this rather mid-level, if slightly above average comic book film. Simply put, it's reference quality. The audio and video transfers are pretty much flawless. The extras are incredibly thorough and comprehensive as well. This trilogy is one of the best looking and sounding sets on the market. The only flaw with the set, aside from the decrease in quality entering the third installment, is the lack of extras on the first two discs. Overall though, this set is Highly Recommended, but the re-releases of the first two films are better than the first two discs in this set.