Overall Rating
 Awesome: 18.66%
Worth A Look: 17.7%
Average: 21.53%
Pretty Bad: 26.32%
Total Crap: 15.79%
9 reviews, 155 user ratings
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| Spider-Man 3 |
by W. Scott Gordon
"Spiderman 3 Spins Tangled Web, Catches too Many Flies"
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By overpopulating the landscape with enemies and eschewing the economy of story and character that made Spiderman and Spiderman 2 so wonderful, Raimi & co. have ensnared the wall-crawler deep within his own web with no possibility of escape.Both 2002s Spiderman and its stupendous sequel featured classic battles between our friendly neighborhood Spiderman and a particular villain who hated him and the world, always against the backdrop of Peter Parkers very human relationship with that villains ordinary counterpart. In Norman Osborn/Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Peter found father figures of sorts. That both men are misguided and thus, much lesser men than his Uncle Ben, provides the compass of his continuous quest to better himself.
In the world of Spiderman 3, Peter lacks such a compasshis male role models are a nerdy physics professor and Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson, who just yells at him as usual. It seems that this lack of stewardship has made Peter quite the fancy-pantsinstead of waxing philosophical about responsibility, this time hes reveling overly much in the celebrity that comes with being Spiderman. On top of that, things are going sour with MJ (Kirsten Dunst), an alien symbiote is messing with Spideys mojo, Harrys still pissed (I mean, like, he could become Goblin Junior at any moment pissed) about his fathers death, Peters fighting with some guy named Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) at the Daily Bugle, and the police may have found Uncle Bens real killer, Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church). Who, its worth noting, actually turns into a car-crunching sand-monster at one point. If Ive lost anybody, I sincerely apologizeeven as a die-hard Spidey fan, I had trouble keeping up with the number of plot threads culled from decades of comic-book history and shoehorned, willy-nilly, into the story.
It follows that convoluted stories need convoluted characters to serve their ends, and Spiderman 3 certainly provides on this front. For example, although Flint Marko has been identified as Uncle Bens killer, a brief scene of him sneaking in from prison to visit his sick daughter is supposed to win our sympathies. A fugitive on the run, he stops in to tell his family that he will get the money to make her well again. Im not a bad personEve just had bad luck,Ehe says soulfully. As Marko then stumbles into what has to be the only open Particle Physics Testing FacilityEin all of New York, thus transforming into The Sandman, I thought to myself, Well, I should say so.EWe are supposed to feel sad for him, and for a brief moment, we dountil he starts knocking people around with his big, grainy fists and yelling. Wouldnt it be easier just to flatten himself, slide in under the bank security cameras, and push the money out on a wave of sand? Smarter idea, but yeahno movie then. So we dont love Markos character, but we dont hate him eitherUncle Bens death was dealt with in the first two films, and Markos part in it feels just as it really isadded to serve the story rather than an organic part of it.
Ringing equally false is the inclusion of Eddie Brock, a rival photographer out for the ultimate Spider-scoop and thus, Peters job. When Peter gives Eddie the equivalent of a deserved de-pantingEon the adult playground, Eddie becomes angry enough to enter a Catholic church, humbled and humiliated, to ask just one thing of you, Lordhelp me find a way to kill Peter Parker!ESince Harry Osborn has always believed Peter/Spiderman to be the instrument of his fathers death, coming from him that line might carry some weight storywise. Issuing from Eddies petulant, That 70s Show lips, it just sounds whiney. The fact that he is then provided with his tool of vengeance only seconds later, becoming the foaming anti-Spiderman (called Venom in comic-lore) via an alien parasite, was probably supposed to be funny or ironic or something. I just thought, good thing this alien parasite didnt land near the Particle Physics Testing Facility at the same time Marko didthen wed have a disgruntled, sandy, not to mention really spidery thing to deal with. Whew, that was close. Sandman and Venom do eventually join forces against Spiderman, of courseplease dont ask me how or why.
Amid all the ballyhoo, its a wonder that any of the three central characters receive any attention at all. After getting bad reviews on Broadway (which would parallel the reviews Mrs. Dunst is getting for this movie, I suspect), MJ spends the majority of the picture crying into her microphone. Peter, whos too busy absorbing the citys admiration of Spidey, doesnt really seem to care. Heor Tobey Maguire, I cant tell whichseems distracted somehow. McGuire is still stellar as Peter, but has more fun playing with Peters darker side (another contrived plot point) than he does tackling his natural evolution as a character.
Even Harry Osborns inevitable fall into darkness, journey toward redemption, and reconciliation with Peter/Spiderman, which in itself could have formed the perfect bookend to the trilogy, is here handled in a slapdash fashion. Youll have to be alert to catch the impetus for Harrys change of heart toward his erstwhile friend, for I guarantee that you will not and cannot anticipate it. In another film, such inability to guess might indicate intricate plotting; here, its just bad writing.I've heard the theme this time around had something to do with redemptionEand forgivenessbecause I saw the movie in Japan, Im still trying to decide whether to forgive the producers for fleecing me out of eighteen bucks!
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=15898&reviewer=406
originally posted: 08/21/08 22:50:56
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USA
04-May-2007 (PG-13)
DVD: 30-Oct-2007
UK
N/A
Australia
03-May-2007
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