I saw SPIDER-MAN 3 last weekend, and as a wannabe comics nerd and a huge Sam Raimi fan, I hafta say, SPIDERMAN 3 was really disappointing. I can't *quite* say that you should skip it at the theater. A couple of the fight scenes are definitely big screen material, and for my money, Bruce Campbell's work is always enhanced at larger-than-life size. And if you're a parent of kids who are Spidey fans, well, there's definitely no skipping this one. I'm sure they'll eat it up. You, however, may find some of it hard to swallow.
The movie posse that evening included Ana, Lora, M, Dan, Ray, Ellie, and... frack, I've forgotten her husband's name. Most of us met up for dinner downtown at Penang before the flick. I liked the roti for apps, and when the platters came, I wasn't all that adventurous and stuck with the beef dishes and rice. I fore... umm... is "forewent" a correct conjugation? I forewent popcorn and soda that evening. Over the last four or five years I've found that my system processes a big soda and popcorn in less than 2 hours if I'm sitting in the dark. Not good for a movie that runs 2 hours 20 minutes, donchaknow. And megaplex popcorn more and more seems to be a gamble as far as taste and satisfaction go. Bleah.
The movie... I think it suffers a bit from what befell Lucas in EPISODE 1 in that Raimi seems to be playing to a younger demo. Not just a "comic book" demo, but a childish one. I suspect it may be the influence of his own children, whose names appear in the end credits, and faces appear in some not-so-well-acted crowd cameos, heh. This leads to campier and just plain unbelievable scenes and set pieces that feel more like XENA than SPIDERMAN (a la the Jazz Club), and a completely different tone from the first two excellent movies.
Storytellingwise, given the 2 hours 20 minutes I saw on screen, the film could have benefitted from some serious editing. At the same time—and I know this sounds kind of crazy, given the running time—I feel like the film is missing significant chunks of story and development, and frankly, want to *add* to it as well as edit. Some things just happened too fast.
Plot and character-wise, well, the themes of "power corrupts" and the imperfect human condition are great generators of drama and development. Too great, unfortunately, yielding two movies' worth of material that Raimi and company ended up having to jam into one this one film. The result—everything is flat. Some of it I enjoyed, in a comic book cliche way... The symbiote falling from the sky. The origin of the Sandman, a classic stereotypical comic book origin, and Hulk-ish. I enjoyed the recognition of these comic book-y devices as well as the level of suspension of disbelief involved. But introducing Brock, setting him up as an Eddie Haskell type of pigheaded smarm-monger, and then having him embrace his Venom persona (and other revelations) in so short a span of time... That was hard to swallow.
The multithreaded story was just too ambitious for a single feature film. What would have been better is a SM3 and SM4 that could be released a year apart, a la the PIRATES sequels. I would've been much happier if Raimi could have planted the seeds of Eddie Brock and the symbiote in one movie (if they'd known enough, and had time enough, to do it in SM2, it would've been perfect), and have the SANDMAN fully developed but still rogue, maybe end the movie with Peter, unwittingly jumped by the symbiote, going dark on Osbourne, then finish it all in a second movie when Osbourne learns that Peter didn't kill his dad, the symbiote jumps from Peter to Brock, and then do the team-up action.
Random "whoa"—Teresa Russell? Where'd they find her?
Random "wha?"—Wasn't Doc Connors some sort of biologist in the comics? He messes w the regenerative powers of reptiles by design, in his own field, right? In the movies he's a physicist? That didn't register w me until this film. Would've been nice to have a crossover with Reed Richards of the FF. Guess that would cause too much paperwork in legal, tho, eh? Hopefully it'll eventually happen.
Seeing Gwen and Captain Stacy was grand, an introduction of characters that can be played with in sequels. Although, connecting Gwen to Brock was a little too much. Yeah, that's right. I like the bad-guy-from-outer-space, but I've got a problem with some jerk having a smart girlfriend who's a model and the daughter of an NYPD captain. Wannafightabouddit?
Some *SPOILER*y remarks follow...
My favorite fight scenes from 3 are the two between Osbourne and Parker, both times with Parker in civvies. The first one, when he almost loses the ring, and the second one, when he confronts Harry in his penthouse and they're both out of costume. Kinda surprising, but also disappointing, cuz *damn* those scenes of Spidey vs. Doc Ock in 2 are just so freaking amazing. I mean, if a guy with 4 remote arms fused to his spine with a malevolent artificial intelligence were to fight with a kid who can stick to walls and shoot webbing from his wrists (does he lose weight when he does that? how much does he have to eat?), it would look EXACTLY like what we see in SPIDERMAN 2. =)
I haven't kept up on all of the Spiderman books, but I can't recall any version of the Goblin fighting alongside Spidey. I know that Harry was psychologicaly unstable and was the Goblin for a while, and then not, and then was again, and then wasn't, but never saw him side-by-side w Spidey against another enemy. Jim thinks that his character went that way based on James Franco's popularity. I don't see it, but then, he thought of him as relatively unknown when SM1 came out, but I of course thought he was already ready for the big time, post FREAKS AND GEEKS.
Teaming up kind of felt okay, tho, given the way the characters have developed in the films. Spidey's always been about team-ups in my head, a notion planted by his MARVEL TEAM-UP title in my formative years.
I felt like the Sandman effects seemed to be created to be too "realistic," instead of Sandman-y. True, a guy made of sand who chooses to maintain the illusion of wearing a black and green striped shirt seems a bit dumb, but what are ya gonna do? That's who the Sandman is. =) Gotta say, I was disappointed with how chunky and "monstrous" he appeared when he was supersized.
I was surprised at how well the symbiote's weakness to sonics and ultimate defeat actually worked for me on screen. I was thinking about it as the movie went on and worried that I wouldn't buy it when the time came for Peter to actually figure out how to beat it. If they'd introduced some villain or tech that involved sonics it could've been easier, but maybe too (ha) obvious. But they managed to get just enough key moments in there, and just the right flashbacks, to make it work.
Allright, enough rambling...
Keep on keepin on~
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