SPIDERMAN 3 Review:
I have to ask: What the hell happened here?
I remember going to see Spiderman 2 in New York City upon its release a few years back. From the opening credits, I had a giddy smile on my face that didn't leave until the end of the film. Everything clicked. They did it - they nailed Spiderman.
Going into Spiderman 3, the same magic SHOULD have been there. The cast was back, acclaimed director Sam Raimi was back, and new additions to the cast like Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, and Bryce Dallas Howard all seemed promising. Somewhere in the process of making this film however, it seems that the great Sam Raimi was body-snatched and replaced with Joel Schumacher. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. How else to explain the fact that Spiderman 3 turned out to be an overstuffed, uneven, goofy mess of a movie?
Look, a lot of reports seem to indicate that this movie had some behind-the-scenes problems. Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst never really seemed all that enthused about coming back for a Round 3. Sam Raimi seemed to perhaps be burnt out on these mega superhero epics, and frustrated with studio interference that saw fan-favorite comic book villain Venom shoehorned into the script at the behest of then-Marvel Studios chief Avi Arad. But whatever did happen in the making of this movie, something went very wrong.
The tone is just all over the place. There's moments of real darkness mixed with complete camp. Right in the middle of big, climactic showdowns, there's cornball humor. It almost felt like Raimi was looking to do the B-movie camp of an Army of Darkness but knew he couldn't go all the way with it. There's moments in this movie, many of them in fact, that are just so off. There's a whole period in the film where Peter Parker, under the influence of the alien symbiote, inexplicably goes goth, to groan-inducing effect. I know Gough and Miller had nothing to do with this movie - their involvement was limited to the superior Part 2 - but man, this Spiderman had all the same lame plot devices as the worst episodes of Smallville. Amnesia. Yes, AMNESIA is randomly used as a key plot point in the film, and the weirdest part is that it is only a fleeting condition, so ultimately it's pretty pointless. But really? Amnesia? And to continue my Smallville comparison, the whole sequence where Peter is "possessed" by the symbiote and starts acting like some kind of wannabe badass goth tough guy, is just plain laughable. I mean, at one point Peter Parker struts down the streets of New York, looking like some goth-nerd version of Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, dancing and flirting with random ladies. Totally cringe-worthy material. Of course, Peter's possession leads to all kinds of sitcom-esque misunderstandings. The romantic ups and downs of Peter Parker and Mary Jane are so hamfisted and contrived that even Stan Lee, who doesn't know the meaning of the word subtlety, was probably shaking his head while watching this all play out. The stilted dialogue doesn't help things much either ...
Now, so much time is spent on Peter and Mary Jane, as they go from almost-married to on the rocks to broken up to reluctant allies to reunited by tragedy, that it's easy to forget that this movie has three villains to deal with. I think Sam Raimi forgot this too, because all three badguys get the short shrift. Okay - the most promising villain here is, surprisingly, the Sandman, played cooly and with great pathos by the excellent Thomas Haden Church. His story starts out promisingly with some interesting backstory, something about a sick daughter. Then, after a tres-cool transformation into a sand-powered freak, thing start to go downhill for ol' Sandy. He's retroactively made into the killer of Peter's Uncle Ben, adding a fairly unnecessary and not-fully-explored element to the story. And soon enough, the daughter is mostly forgotten except for the many times when Church gazes into his locket that holds her picture. What seemed to be a classic Spiderman villain-in-the-making in The Sandman quickly degenerated into just another guy for Spidey to fight. And like just about every other plotline in the film, Sandman's story ends not on a bang, but on a whimper.
Next we have Harry Osborne, whose story has been building and building throughout the series. James Franco is a great actor, but here he's relegated to replaying every stock villain storyline there is. He gets amnesia and goes back to being Peter's friend ... for a bit. He steals our hero's girl. Then he does the typical Han Solo last minute change of heart save thing. And that last one, that big heroic save? Well, there's no great scene of Harry having a change of heart, no traumatic event that forces him back to the side of the angels. Nope, out of nowhere, his crusty old butler emerges from God knows where, yes, I said his BUTLER, playing the part of Exposition Man, and walks onto stage left and proceeds to fill in Harry about the truth of his father's death, which we the audience have known since Spiderman 1. Cue sudden change of heart for Harry! Sure, part of me wanted to cheer when Harry Osborne swooped in to save his buddy Spiderman with a well-placed Pumpkin Bomb, but part of me was just put off by how crappily-set up this potentially climactic scene was.
Now, Venom. Venom is the one that all the fanboys were drooling to see. Even if you weren't a comic reader, Venom was everywhere back in the 90's, when an artist named Todd McFarlane reinvigorated Spidey with his coolest-looking villain to date. Venom, in Spiderman 3, I'm sorry to report, pretty much blows. Sure, he looks cool, kind of, for all of the 5 minutes we actually get to see him. But just when Venom is kicking ass, his face mask CGI's away to reveal a fanged Eric Forman from That 70's Show, who it turns out, is just some lame photographer who's pissed at Peter Parker because he exposed his photos of Spiderman as being fakes. Eddie Brock, aka Venom, is completely shoehorned into this movie and its obvious from the get-go that Raimi never really wanted him to be there. His story is completely underdeveloped, and his motivations basically nonexistent. And the brief glimpses of Venom in all his alien glory are ruined whenever we're reminded that this cool-looking monster is just some skinny geek with frost-tipped hair. Venom in this movie never feels scary or dangerous in the least.
By the way - a slight tangent. I don't get why this movie, even more so than the first two, seems totally terrified to show Spiderman or even Venom in full costume. Spiderman looks awesome in his full getup, pulled right from the pages of a Marvel comic. And yet Raimi or the studio heads or whomever feel like we need to be reminded every five seconds that "hey guys, in case you forgot, that's BONAFIDE MOVIE STAR, TOBEY MAGUIRE, under that sweet-looking Spiderman mask. Well guess what, Tobey is kind of goofy-looking. Spiderman on the other hand, wears one of the greatest superhero outfits ever designed, thanks to the great Steve Ditko. Give us Spiderman, dammit, not Tobey Maguire in a red and blue leotard. The same goes for Venom. Everytime I began to think - hey, Venom actually looks kinda sweet - they rip away his costume to remind us that it's really just Topher Grace under there. WTF. Imagine if in Alien they kept having H.R. Giger's horrific creatures peel back their outfits to reveal that they were really just a bunch of stuntmen in rubber suits. I mean, unlike most superhero movies, the Spiderman guys managed to design a kickass costume for our hero that looks great AND is true to the comic. Why not show it off?
But getting back to the short shrift that the villains of this movie recieve ... so, yeah, the whole backstory of the alien symbiote that turns Spiderman's costume black and transforms Eddie Brock into Venom? Yeah, guess what? YOU WON'T FIND IT IN THIS MOVIE. All that happens is that a random meteor crashes next to Peter's apartment. We get a few scenes where Dr. Connor explains that the presumably alien compound is like nothing he's ever seen. And. That's. It. Look, I get that they don't have time to go into some epic outer space saga here. But to leave the major plot element of the whole movie totally unexplained is kind of absurd, dontcha think? Not to mention - all that talk about how the black suit gives Peter this newfound power ... well, what that translates to is Spiderman doing an extra backflip or two while swinging around New York. Niiiice .... And how about the anticlimactic final face-off between Spidey and Venom? What should have been a knockout, dragout brawl is instead anything but.
And it's not just the villains that find themselves squeezed into the movie with little build-up or development. Comic book staple Gwen Stacy appears here, but plays a mostly inconsequential role. She's mostly just there for a few key scenes, essentially as a walking plot device to make Mary Jane jealous. There's never any real relationship between her and Peter. We never really care about her. She adds nothing to the movie, which is too bad as Gwen is a pivotal character in Spiderman lore, and Bryce seemed up to the task of doing something interesting with the character.
As for the two leads ... Maguire here, well, the word I keep coming back to is "goofy." Marvel comics characters, Spiderman especially, have always been angst-ridden. But here, Maguire goes beyond angst and elicits much unintentional laughter with the oddball nature of his performance. Who thought it was a good idea for Maguire to don goth eyeliner and slicked-down hair as an aftereffect of wearing the black suit? Who thought it'd be funny or right for the tone of the franchise to have him do a Fonzie impression and break into impromptu disco-dancing as a sign of his newfound, carefree attitude? Who thought it'd be a good idea to have multiple closeups of Maguire's double chin as he bawls like a baby into the camera in what is surely one of the most "emo" superhero representations to date? Maguire has been great in this franchise, but in too many scenes in this one, he really overdoes it - he's so often oddball, goofy, and melodramatic that when the time comes for him to don the costume and be the kickass superhero, it's almost impossible to take him seriously. Case in point: in Spiderman 1, post 9/11, the image of Spidey posing before the American flag was powerful, iconic, resonant. When the image is repeated here, thanks to how cheesy so much of the movie has been to that point, it has little of the same power.
Kirsten Dunst is okay here, but some of the negative attitude that is exuded in some of the actresses' recent interviews seems to come through on screen as well. Mary Jane seems too hard in this movie. She's abrasive, moody, and never all that likable. We never get the sense that MJ is justified in being so cold towards Peter, and we never quite see what Peter sees in Mary Jane.
Okay ... all that being said, there is a lot, in fact, to like in the movie. Let me run down some of the positives:
- The action, for the most part, is stellar. The opening face off between Spidey and Harry is pretty spectacular, and sets the pace for the rest of the film. In fact, it may well be one of the best comic book movie action scenes we've seen to date. Similarly, when Spidey rescues Gwen Stacy from the Sandman's rampage, its fun, kinetic, and looks great.
- BRUCE CAMPBELL. He is, as always, awesome in his obligatory Spiderman cameo, and is a true show-stealer. Seeing The Chin steal scenes with Maguire and Dunst makes you wonder why Bruce can't get his own big budget action movie franchise. Sure, he isn't getting any younger, but man, can you imagine a young Bruce as Spiderman?!?! Ah, what might have been ...
- There is one scene in this movie that to me was, plain and simply, INCREDIBLE. It happens early on, so it got me really excited for what was to come. Unfortunately, no scene from that point on came close to matching this one's beauty, imagery, or style. The scene in question is the one in which Haden Church, as Flynt Marko, gets caught in some kind of device, which, in classic comic book fashion, scrambles his molecules and leaves him a being of living sand. After being reduced to a pile of grains, what transpires next is simply awe-inspiring, as we see the grains of sand shift and take form, grasping to reclaim their once-human shape and functionality. This, my friends, was vintage Sam Raimi. If only every scene was as great as this one.
- Following up on that, the CGI in this film really was top-notch, and rarely has CGI been used to such great effect in both action scenes, and in quieter scenes like the one mentioned above. The sand and rock fragments that made up The Sandman's earthy texture were particularly impressive. One more complaint though - the final, CGI-heavy battle is a step down from earlier action scenes, with an over the top looking Sandman flailing away at Spiderman in a visually busy but ultimately hollow climax.
- The bit players, the ones who get none of they hype but are the glue that holds the series together, were great here as always. JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson is once again great, the one guy in the film who pulled off all of the humor and cartoonish craziness to perfection. Rosemary Harris adds a touch of class yet again as the sagely Aunt May. And fans of 24 should be on the lookout for James Cromwell, aka Papa Bauer, as a police officer and father to Gwen Stacy.
- Once again, Danny Elfman and co's score is top-notch. Great, mood-setting music throughout.
- A nod to all the True Believers as Stan "The Man" Lee gets one of his best Marvel cameos to date, in a nice little scene that made me smile. Excelsior! 'Nuff said.
As you can see, there WERE some little hints of greatness sprinkled throught Spiderman 3. But those moments were overpowered by the weaknesses of the script, which helped to produce a film filled with half-baked ideas and underdeveloped characters, and a tone that was truly all over the place, with some nice moments of epic superhero drama but many more of pure cheeseball goofiness with humor that fell flat. I mean, let's look at this, it's not hard to figure out. Spiderman 1 had a script by David Koepp - a proven talent. Spiderman 2, now clearly established as the best of the trilogy, had a great script by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar of Smallville, and by the great Michael Chabon, one of the preeminant writers of his generation. Only Alvin Sargent remained onboard from Part 2 to Part 3. Sam Raimi, a great director to be sure, wrote part 3 with brother Ivan. Aside from the cult-fave Evil Dead movies and Darkman, the Raimis do not have many screenplays to their credit. Putting them behind the typewriter for Part 3 was a huge risk - and I'm sure it didn't help that their original vision was later changed by the studio to include characters like Venom, who, though cool in the comics, had no real place in the story that the Raimis wanted to tell. The result? A third Spiderman movie that can be considered nothing less than a creative disappointment. A surprisingly uneven movie that doesn't live up to the high standard set by Part 2. Judging from the Galactus-sized numbers this film is set to do at the box office, one might be led to believe it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and man, I wish that were true. Stan Lee himself couldn't have hyped this movie any better, but this summer season has started with a surprising twist - not one that Stan would approve of, as Spiderman 3, seemingly a sure thing, fails to meet expectations, and a once-dominant franchise runs into a creative brick wall.
My Grade: C+
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