with his actors, and the dialogue lacks smart menace, but his canny visual sense carries many a scene". Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote: "The movie is full of jaunty, Grand Guignol touches (the main gangster enjoys snapping and collecting fingers), but Raimi's images also have a spectral, kinetic beauty". In his review for The Washington Post, Joe Brown wrote: "Though Raimi seems to be trying to restrain himself, his giddily sick sense of humor still pops out all over the place – Darkman is a frenetic funhouse ride that has you laughing and screaming at the same time". Rita Kempley also of The Washington Post called it "a fiendishly stylish journey that links the classics of transfiguration to the terrors of our times". On the TV program At the Movies, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up". Both remarked at how original and stylised Raimi's sense of direction was, with Siskel adding that Darkman as a character was "interesting". Ian Nathan of Empire magazine said the film was "certainly not Raimi at his best, but some knowing genre nods and an array of great effects make up much of the deficit". Peoples Ralph Novak called Darkman, a "loud, sadistic, stupidly written, wretchedly acted film". Darkman was singled out for notice by comic-book writer Peter David in the Comics Buyer's Guide as "The Perfect Super-Hero Film of All Time", although this assessment was based upon other features of the film than general quality. The A.V. Club called Darkman a key transitional film, bridging from Burton's Batman films, while forging its own dark path to the future. Merchandise Darkman has been the subject of two Marvel Comics series (one a movie adaptation, the other an original sequel), numerous novels, as well as a video game published by Ocean Software, Darkman (1991). Tony Gardner's company Alterian, Inc. produced two different Halloween masks of the Darkman character after the film was released. Merchandising for the character all but disappeared for close to a decade until SOTA Toys obtained the rights to make a Darkman action figure. SOTA president Jerry Macaluso was interviewed by Dread Central: In 2005, SOTA produced two versions of their Darkman action figure (including interchangeable head and hands to allow the figure to be either bandaged or revealing his scarred visage), as well as a Darkman statue. Dynamite Entertainment in