Long, but entertaining: Spider-Man 3

Saw it tonight. The worst of the three, in a Return of the jedi/Indiana JOnes and the Temple of Doom sort of way. Mediocre as compared to the others in the series, but better than much of the tripe in the genre.


Those who wish to avoid SPOILERS!, read no further.


















dooley, "deus ex machina" were my exact words when the butler pulled that crap. And I wasn't the only one in the theater.

I am a Spider-Man fan. I think he's the greatest hero in all of comics, because he does have "normal" prolems, like money, relationships; his old-school comic was like a good episode of Smallville every time out. Weird asides like web-slinging home from class, then having to fight some thugs who are trying to rob someone, but finding that he ruined his schoolbooks by using the Web-bag they were in to pummel the baddies. (Yes, this actually happened).

Yet, he got the girl. Got the supermodel, showing that all his suffering and trying to do the right thing paid off. And he was never obsessed or vengeful, despite a Batman-like origin with the death of his uncle. He was dedicated and motivated, always trying to prevent that tragedy from happening to someone else. He tried to take responsibility, because he could.

Now, the first two movies were excellent as comic movies go. I wouldn't put either one on par with Superman: The Movie or Batman Begins, but they were up there wth the first two X-Men films as being damn good. Another thing that made Spidey great was his rogues' gallery, a better one than Batman's because of so many personal connections. In No. 2, they created a personal connection to Doc Ock, and it worked great, largely because it kept the spotlight on Peter's science affinity.

In this movie . . . . let's put it this way. When Harry kissed Mary Jane, that was it for me. This was easily the worst movie of the three. WHY continue to mine tired "Oh no . . Peter and MJ are having relationship issues!" material? Yes, I liked the saturday night fever nod, and rea;;y enjoyed some of the fights; though the fights in these Spidey movies can be tough to follow at times.

And how many times in this movie can the viewer say "What are the fucking odds?!?!?!?!" The meteor just HAPPENS to land near them. The new villain just HAPPENS to fall into a pit right when there's about to be a strange experiment . .in the middle of the night?!?!?! The new villain HAPPENS to be dude who killed Uncle Ben. The butler pulls some BS from his ass about why Harry should go help Peter now. Harry should have said "Thanks for telling me that before I ruined my face, you dumb asshole."

The Venom stuff felt shoehorned in, like they felt this might be the last one, and they had to appease all the fanboys who had a hard-on for Todd MacFarlane's character. And it led to a bunch of unnecessary and disjointed plot stuff. The last film offered a perfect opportunity to get Venom and that stupid costume in there. John Jameson was an astronaut; they should have had him bring it back from space. Better than an "Oh shit! The villain just happened to land 100 feet from the hero!" twist.

WHY would Peter happen to go to the bell tower to try to take the costume off, then - what are the fucking odds?!?!?!?! - get lucky and find that noise is its weakness? God forbid they have a short scene where Dr. Connors (the future Lizard) is testing the sample, and finds that noise hurts it (or maybe he said that on the phone; I didn't catch it if he did). I did like the stuff with Peter vs. EDdie Brock, but yeah; Venom could have been saved for the next one.

As I left the movie, I wondered: if you cut out most of the Venom stuff, all the "MJ and Peter are having issues!" stuff, and cut out the part about Sandman being Uncle ben's killer, would it be a better movie? Absolutely, because it very clearly had the feel of a Schumacher Batman, where they tried to put in as many villains and characters as possible. Just too much BS going on, and not enough new plot.

Hell, they even tried to squeeze Gwen freaking Stacy in there.

I especially loved the end. Sandman, repentant: "I didn't want this." Really? I guess it was some other guy who turned into a 90-foot sand monster and started pummeling away? "I forgive you." What, for accidentally killing your uncle, or for kicking your ass just minutes earlier while also helping try to kill your girlfriend?

The whole thing with Sandman was like they realized these villains were "personal" enough. "hey, let's give dude a daughter! and let's have him be Unce Ben's killer!" Hey, let's write dialogue that had people in the theater cackling: "You're my friend." "Best friend."

It wasn't Hulk/Daredevil/Fantastic Four bad. But it was definitely X-Men 3 bad. Gee, another movie where they had a seminal villain from outer space and couldn't figure out how to get it done on the big screen.

 

I like most comic-book movies and accept them for what they are, but this one was just plain bad. We walked out once the dancing in the night club began.

Still think Superman and Batman were better.

 

I just got back from seeing it with a couple of buddies and, while they thoroughly loved it, I was just as disappointed with it as you were, Piotr.
You touched on all the points and I'd just like to add that the last hour felt like Raimi took a vacation from writing and let Oprah and Dr. Phil finish up, what with all the relationships neatly tied together and everyone getting along so well.
Like you said, not "Hulk" bad, but very, very far below the other two Spider-Man movies before it.

 

It's funny. I love the character in the comics as much as you do, Piotr, but that just wasn't my reaction. I saw the holes in the plot as it went, and just didn't care. I agree with you about Sandman, but I think the solution there was to have him already have his powers and show how he got them in a flashback rather than time it exactly that way.

I think the Venom stuff was handled like that for two reasons. One: the thought that this was the last movie so they wanted to get a lot of stuff in. And two: Raimi isn't a big fan of the character. He knew the fans wanted Venom, but I don't think he saw Venom carrying an entire movie as the villian.

I don't mind the bell tower thing, either. Wasn't it something similar in the comics? I wasn't a reader at the time, but I thought that was how he got rid of the costume and how it ended up on Brock in the comics, so I can see Raimi staying true to that.

I did see the villians all fitting in with the theme of the movie. Peter is struggling with his dark side and so does each of these villains in their own way. Sandman isn't evil, but he is a complete fuck-up who keeps hurting people because he isn't strong enough to handle his problems the right way. Harry loses himself to his demons, then finds his way back. And Eddie Brock completely embraces all of his own worst traits.

Yeah, if you pick it apart, you can definitely see a bunch of ways it could have been done better, including spreading these stories over two movies. But I still enjoyed the movie just as it was. I think this one was a little more frustrating for the die-hard fans, but maybe more enjoyable than the first two for the movie fan who doesn't read the comics.

 

People who spend hours debating about "what are the odds a meteor would fall next to Peter?" crack me up.

It's called "suspension of disbelief" people -- you know, kind of what you have to do in the first place to ever believe a high school kid can turn into a "Spider-Man"!

 

Suspension of disbelief isn't just the responsibility of the audience. The storyteller - in this case the writer/director - earns it. Any story, no matter how improbable, can be well or poorly told. In a well told story, no one complains about coincidence or improbability. Not because it doesn't occur, but because it's artfully handled.

"A white whale? WTF?"

"He killed himself because he thought she was dead, but she wasn't, and then she kills herself when she wakes up and finds him dead? Weak."

"After three days he rose from the dead? Gimme a break."

 

Exactly. That's the thing. I bought in, but I can definitely see why others did not.

 

If this is the last spidey movie, then way to go. I hope it stops at three.
But if they make a fourth Spidey flick, then this one turns out to be a waste of time.
I agree about spreading it out if there's another movie to make. But I don't think there will be another movie.

 

I'd like to see another one made, but as I told my stepdaughter as we walked out, if it ends now, I could live with how it finished...

 

There will be a Spider-Man 4 because (A) the story has to end with Peter and Mary Jane getting married and (B) this movie will make a ton of money, just like one and two. So the studio will sweet talk Raimi, Maguire and Dunst into making one more movie.

 

Some entertaining parts, but overall a bad movie.
I'd give it two stars.

 

More than one article said Raimi was basically asked to squeeze Venom in. Avi Arad (whoever the fuck he really is in comic-dom, besides a damn businessman) said to put venom in to please the fans. So I was right: they wanted to please all the fan boys who made their MacFarlane-era pages sticky.

As for the bells: Spidey went there because he knew its weakness to sound and hoped that would work. Reed richards had shot the costume off him with a sonic gun before. So Spidey hoped,but he had some good evidence to indicate the bell tower would work. Re-creating that was good; the execution was not.

Sure, there were some good ideas. But Sandman's ultimate "repentance" was so bad, so out of nowhere, that it rang hollow. Venom's stuff was great as long as he was still Eddie Brock. Then his scene where he recruited Sandman was straight from Batman Forever (Riddler recruiting Two-face) and Batman and Robin (Poison Ivy recruiting Mr. Freeze). A stupid brief meeting: "Hey, we both hate the hero, and the movie's got about 25-30 minutes to go. Let's team up!" Just poor storytelling. They had all these elements they wanted to squeeze in, and it was just a mishmash.

As for the assertion of suspension of disbelief: You can only say "what are the fuckin odds!" so many times.

Very disappointing. But again, just like X3's attempt to get Phoenix in "for the fans." The fans want good movies; the non-fans, strangely, want the same.