Darkman (1990) ***1/2

I miss this era of filmmaking. Over the top, theatrical, gothic, slightly campy superhero/comic book movies like Tim Burton's Batman (1989) (review), Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy (1990), and Sam Raimi's Darkman (1990) are my jam. Coincidentally, Danny Elfman scored all three—the composer was in his prime, on a truly impressive run from 1988–1990, scoring a whopping 10 films!

The last time I watched Darkman was almost 10 years ago to the day and it was even better than I remembered. Taking inspiration from Universal Monsters (in particular 1933's The Invisible Man (review), with its gleefully vindictive “hero”), Raimi—with all his weirdness, particular humor ("take the fucking elephant!"), cartoonish violence, dutch angles, frenetic camerawork, and visual inventiveness—created a truly bizarre but very entertaining picture. Some of the optical effects haven’t held up well (charmingly so), but the goopy, gory makeup effects are fantastic. The performances are great, the production design is wonderful, the stunts are crazy, and the finale is a wild ride.

Sam Raimi Feature Films Ranked