"Los Angeles Times" film critic Michael Wilmington felt that "Darkman" was the only film at the time "that successfully captures the graphic look, rhythm and style of the superhero books." Terrence Rafferty of "The New Yorker" said, "Raimi works from inside the cheerfully violent adolescent-male sensibility of superhero comics, as if there were no higher style for a filmmaker to aspire to, and the absence of condescension is refreshing." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote: "Raimi's live-action comic book aims to deliver scares spiked with laughs. That it does." "USA Today" gave the film three out of four stars, and wrote: "With good leads and a few bucks, he's come up with a high-octane revenge piece mentionable in the same breath as its predecessors." Richard Corliss in "Time" said "Raimi isn't effective 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".