Review: Spider-Man 3
Now I enjoyed the first two movies a lot (although, I may be in the minority in that I liked the first one more than the second) so I walked into the third fairly optimistic. Although, I’d heard all the rumors that the cost of this movie (including marketing) was half a billion dollars, which made me worry some.
Here’s the short answer, I really didn’t like it at all. On the felix scale, 0-10, I give it a 5.5. Unusually for a movie that I disliked, I at least didn’t leave angry at the movie, just kind of disappointed. I felt like there was cliche after cliche in the movie, a few obvious laughs and a kitchen sink approach to this 2.5 hour movie. It was all over the place.
I appreciate that Sam Raimi was trying to give the movie some depth but there was no focus and the movie was so long and effects ridden that even an offensively large budget couldn’t make everything look good. Spiderman still moves very jerkily in the CG scenes amongst other issues. If he had cut out about half the major story lines and focused the movie into an hour forty five or so, I think it would have been a much tighter and more coherent movie.
There’ll probably be some spoilers from here on out, so if you don’t want to read on - don’t click on more.
Still here? Not worried about spoilers? Sure? Good. I now absolve myself of all spoiler sins from here on out.
Like I said, I like that Sam was trying to make the movie something more than just action and chasing. All the Spider-Man movies have been introspective, but in this one Sam tried to kick it up a notch and make everyone get in on the introspection. Everyone. And believe me there were a lot of people.
First there’s no less than three separate major bad guys. Each introduced in sequence, each one (except venom) seemingly gone at one point, replaced by the next and then a comeback is made. First they make Harry Osborne’s goblin personality some kind of snowboard riding, magic sword carrying space ninja. Apparently Sam heard that the kids really like the snowboarding. Yeah, yo man, that was totally rad.
After he’s out of the picture comes the Sandman, who’s just a misunderstood guy. He’s been doing all this for his dieing daughter. Pause to weep a little bit. He later is removed from the picture only to be replaced by Eddie Brock and Venom.
Throughout all of this Spider-Man’s spidey sense, the thing that doesn’t let him get surprised by any sort of danger, is apparently gone. He is constantly taken completely by surprise. I’m pretty sure I could have kicked his ass in this movie and while it’s true I took a few months of Muay Thai, Spider-Man in other movies would definitely best me. Then the Venom symbiote - it is apparently attached not to Peter, but to his suit and is actually easily and often completely removed and stored in a chest. Which, whatever is fine - movies are different than the comics - but wait, no, after Peter hits rock bottom (see cliches below) he suddenly can’t remove the suit. All this in order to have the cool bell tower scene from the comics. And that he’s in the church and the bell’s there and it gongs is all completely coincidental - good luck that Petey found the things one weakness just then! Now never one to fault a movie for differing from it’s source material, I think that Sam missed a really interesting opportunity here to develop the symbiote - in the comics the symbiote had an interesting and nuanced relationship with Peter, even apparently saving his life after the bell knocks him out. But Sam is too concerned with wrapping up every last end to worry about good story.
As for cliches, there were tons. I mean when Peter hits rock bottom it’s in a fight where he’s beating up a couple bouncers and then when MJ comes in to stop hit, she gets hit. Oh no. There’s nothing like the hurt, reproachful look of the girlfriend to make a guy reevaluate his life. That’s like in every movie where a guy hits rock bottom.
Then there’s the Saturday Night Fever walk where evil Peter gets all cool and confident. Sam needs this, as a plot device, to actually be cool - that is, he needs Peter to get popular with the ladies, but his performance is so over the top, Sam also wants to get a few laughs out of it. So he decides, confusingly, that it’s both. The ladies in the movie were creeped out by him when it suited the movie and then schizophrenically fall for it when it becomes a plot point. And then the all seeing, all kindly, all wise butler that saves the day? Please. PLEASE. There’s more cliches but you get the idea. The audience I was with laughed out loud at several scenes that weren’t supposed to be funny at all.
There were good parts as well. I think the scene where the Sandman was just becoming the Sandman was seriously cool. And the end of the diner scene with Harry, towards the end was really good, where he just turns around and smiles. I really liked that scene for some reason.
Nevertheless, the good was soundly outnumbered by the bad and the while effects were generally pretty great, but there were still several times where I was kinda done with them. Disappointing for a movie that reputedly cost half a billion dollars. All in all, I’d rather have caught this on DVD or a plane. He shoulda cut out at least one if not two villains and maybe 45 minutes and made a nice tight movie - if he’d done that on the same budget, I bet it would have been outstanding - from story to effects.
