Spider-Man 3
This is a hard review to write, because I’m not really sure how much I enjoyed the film. Especially after Spider-Man 2, which for me, is arguably the best comic book movie ever. But they did so many things wrong in this movie.
Starting with having a character as important as Gwen Stacey and her father reduced to a few throw away scenes and as a poorly executed romantic wedge between Peter and Mary Jane seems to be a waste of a character who was integral to the Spider-Man story. Especially when the Green Goblin and Dr. Octopus are in the movies. There was an opportunity to create a great comic book story line that they decided to pass up on. (And based on the way they are portrayed in the film, who could ever pick the sourpuss that Mary Jane has become over Gwen.)
The film version of Evil/Black Suit Spider-Man was kind of a bust. As the overly aggressive and angry Spider-Man I suppose it worked, and I liked his encounter with Brock, but the over-confident, disco wanna be jerk that Peter Parker became, I think failed. And while funny for a minute, it became cringe-worthy very quickly.
Put bluntly, 3 dance scenes and 2 songs in a Spider-Man movie are too many. I don’t know what the right number would have been, but I would have recommended Zero.
And the star of the show Venom. Ahhhh Venom. How the fans craved your character’s appearance in the movie. But will they enjoy it?
The look of Venom is slightly off. He’s a lot smaller than in the comic, but then so is Brock and that didn’t bother me all that much. More work could have been put into Brock’s back story and motivation. He was a background player in the comic for months before he finally revealed himself. One problem that I had with the portrayal of Venom was that they did nothing to the voice of Topher Grace when he was Venom. It didn’t seem to fit what we’ve, or I’ve, come to expect as the voice from the monster that is one of Spider-Man’s greatest villains. I would have preferred something more menacing and threatening as opposed to the cackle of Topher.
All that being said, did anything work in the movie?
Well, anytime Spider-Man is on the screen, it’s a joy because of how well they are able to portray his powers in the movies. The wall crawling and web swinging is just great. And the action/fight scenes of the movie are all great. Sam Raimi does a tremendous job when it comes to the action sequences and the scenes in this movie are no exception.
Harry’s Green Goblin didn’t really bother me. With Harry we have a character that has evolved over three movies into someone with a back story and a motive. While I may not like the direction they took the Green Goblin, the character works at least.
The Sandman, I thought, was nicely done, but I would have definitely preferred more Thomas Hayden Church Sandman as opposed to the CG mass of sand flying and forming all over the city. And interjecting him into Spider-Man’s past seemed quite unnecessary to me and added very little to the film. But the fact that I wanted more Sandman is a testament to how good he was when he was there.
With all that though, the film is obviously review proof and who can blame someone for going. I mean, it’s Spider-Man! I can only hope that more care will be taken in crafting the next movie. I mean everyone knows there is going to be a sequel so there isn’t so much of a need to cram so much into each movie.
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