Review of Spider-Man 3

[Ryan McBain]

CLICK HERE FOR THE OFFICIAL TRAILER

A strange black entity from another world bonds with Peter Parker and causes inner turmoil as he contends with new villains, temptations, and revenge.

Spider-Man Spider-Man, everyone loves Spider-Man...no not quite.

Before I even sat down to watch the end of this trilogy I had my doubts. I asked myself, "Self, there is no reason for them to make this movie good because everyone and there mother is going to see this film any ways." When I saw X-Men 2, I couldn't wait for the sequel. And when I saw X3 I realized that they conned us all. And it is sad to see Spider-man 3 follow suit.

Spider-Man 3 isn't a bad film, its just on a lower level than its predecessor. I don't mind the fact they wanted to focus a great deal on Peter Parker and his relationship with Mary Jane Watson. The problem with this movie is that you can't focus on this, bring in two new villains, continue the feud with Harry Osborn, and expect the movie to have perfect rhythm. This film was all over the place. I felt like the director couldn't make up his mind on where to take this movie. I had a feeling that the villains were competing for screen time rather than a protagonist.

The Raimi brothers took every chance they could to show the viewer that a major part of the film was forgiveness and repentance. It got to the point where I said to myself, "For the love of God I get the point!!" I felt like Spider-Man 3 was made by the Catholic church instead of Sony Pictures. After seeing all of this I don't feel guilty on skipping Sunday services anymore.

Christopher Grace did a decent job but he's way too skinny to be playing Venom. Because of his size, (or lack there of) Grace would be a perfect fit to play Carnage instead. The special effects of Venom looked great but they couldn't even give him the correct dialogue. When Venom speaks he usually talks in the second person. Apparently doing this was too "difficult" for the director.

I loved the Sandman character in this film. They did a good job making you see things from his point of view. They did a little tweaking with the character but nothing to the point where it hurt the movie. The scene where he is walking as the Sandman for the first time is some of the best special effects I have ever seen.

The only actor in this film that I was truly impressed with was James Franco (New Goblin/Harry Osborn). Franco facial expressions alone speak volume. He showed emotions in Spider-Man 3 better than anyone in the movie.

I enjoyed how slow the movie started. Some might not agree, but I believe a good film has to have build up to the action. I was pleasantly surprised by this. But as soon as I saw how they introduced the alien Symbiote (Venom), I just shook my head. How this villain was brought into the story was just lazy film making/writing. And if I wrote the movie "The Blob" I would be thinking lawsuit. Its a shame Sam and Ivan Raimi couldn't be more creative.

Besides this movie having too many plot lines and not enough time to develop them, there is another problem I have with Spider-Man 3. This time around, there isn't any moment during the film that shows us the pure emotional power of Spider-Man 2’s finest scene, in which an unmasked Spidey was passed through the arms of subway passengers to honor his heroics for saving their lives. Spider-Man 3 has a few touching moments here and there but nothing on the level of part 2. This was my major gripe with the movie.

Take my advice, just wait for it to come out on DVD...or Blu-Ray for all you classy f*cks.

Rating: out of 5

[The Question]

This Film Destroyed the Franchise

This film was wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start. Let me just list a few reasons why this ruined the franchise:

1. The biggest problem I have is the fact that they totally ruined spiderman's arch nemesis Venom. Venom to me (as a comic fan) was the ultimate foe of spiderman, this film reduced him to such a pathetic state that he wasn't even worthy enough to fight Spiderman by himself. Venom was everything spiderman was in an evil form. There was a ton of depth to him as a character, and how the symbiote suit came to be.

This movie was dreadful at portraying the symbiote suit and its powers, and even worse at creating the villain of Venom. It was like the suit just fell out of the sky, whip-bam-boom throw it on the kid and you get an instant supporting villain. A whole film should have centered around the symbiote suit, when I saw the trailers for SM3 I imagined this film would center around sandman and Harry with Eddie Brock introduced, then possibly the teaser at the end for SM4 is Parker getting rid of the suit and Brock becoming Venom. Venom definitely deserved an entire film to build him up as Spideys arch nemesis and make way for a final good vs evil, venom vs spidey one on one showdown. He clearly served as complete filler in this movie. If I recall Brock was a bodybuilder, hence where Venom was so muscular. Topher Grace just didn't fit this role, horrible choice of actor here. They needed someone with more of a dark undertone. The whole Venom Sandman instant alliance was absolutely ridiculous, what a way to destroy one of the most unique characters in marvel comics. I seriously don't know if the franchise will be able to recover after doing this. I feel like it's going down the road that the original Batman went down.

2. The Butler comes out of nowhere to tell Harry Spiderman didn't kill his father. I about laughed when this happened. First thing that came to mind, Gee, that's really nice of you to finally tell him after 2 years of him trying to kill his best friend, ruin each of their lives, burn half his face off and lose short term memory in the process. Maybe the old butler had dementia, seriously how dumb can the writers to be, how stupid do they take the audience to be???

3. Tobey Mcguire trying to be bad spiderman was a complete flop. He just couldn't pull it off. The emo hair, strutting down the street.... it was completely lame.

4. The Jazz club dancing scene. It was almost as corny as Ron Burgundy playing jazz flute in anchorman. Only difference that was a comedy and this was supposed to be serious.


One thing I did like about the film was the hot blonde playing the police chiefs daughter. Who knew lady in the water girl was that hot? But on a serious note, I think this film may have left this franchise beyond repair.

[Gambit]

Good review.

I thought Topher Grace was awesome. My only problem (and it's with the writers not grace) is that he didn't refer to himself as "we", not enough tongue (no way to say that without sounding gay) and I really needed the line "we are venom". but again, writers problem. At least we got the "My spider sense is tingling" line.

The Movie was equal to the first, but no where near as good as the second.

[Dead AIM]

I was completely dissapointed. As much as I enjoyed the first two (more 1 than 2), I hated this one for a number of reasons:

To start, one inherent problem with comic book movies is that your average "movie" fan won't go along with the logic of the comic book (I personally enjoy comic books), but I can understand the need to ground the fiction in a more solid reality. I appreciate this, even as a comic book fan. So much of this movie was anything but grounded and, therefore, unbelievable. I thought they would improve upon the comic book's logic, but they actually made it far worse. For example, an Alien Symbiote landing 10 feet from where Spider-man is sitting in a web with his girlfriend, happens to latch to his bike, and make it's way home with Peter Parker. That's as much explanation as we get on Venom. Possibly the most popular Spider-man villain ever. Also, are we supposed to believe that the Sandman just happens to run from the police into a molecular test chamber, and that he also just happens to be the guy that killed Uncle Ben. Maybe we can improve upon that creation story a little.

Also, the creative team could have chosen to fully develop the Venom suit story into an entire movie (even including Harry as the Hob Goblin), but they instead focus on 3 characters, never satisfyingly developing any one of them.

Most of the movie has the same vinette schtick as the first 2 films, but in a overt, annoying way. One of these included a kid saying something along the lines of "Wow! Wicked", drawing attention from one of the best action sequences in the film (which were good, but I enjoyed 2's better).

The love scenes were all corny and cliche. People in theatre laughed through 90% of them.

I thought Spider-Man's journey into darkness was interesting at times, and could have been more fully explored, but instead, it ventured into camp, and musical comedy.

I'm not sure what Raimi brothers were thinking, but it certainly wasn't with their hearts and minds. More like with their wallets and Jr. High humor.

If there is another movie made, it's time for a changing of the guard. Lets get the "Batman Begins" guys to write us an intellegent action movie. It is possible.

I could easily keep going about the dissapointments, but I'll stop here, cause I need to go cry a little and beat a pillow. I'm so angry and sad. Thanks for ruining my Spider-man Sam Raimi.

-Sour Spideyfan

P.S. Finally, Bryce Dallas Howard, as a physicist / model (of average good looks and obviously pregnant) / police cheifs daughter / who happens to be in a 50 story building when a runaway crane plows into the floor she's on and is the one who falls, so that Spider-Man can save her, her, who also happens to be his lab partner . . . .Give me an f-ing break. I'm not 4 and WOULD like to enjoy this damn movie, but Raimi isn't even fucking trying.

[Summer Rain]

Looks like I'll just be renting Spider-Man 3.

[Modern Arts]

Spider-Man 3 = Brokeback

The writing, acting, and editing were awful. You don't have to be a diehard comic book fan to notice that this movie fell short compared to the first two installments. The Sandman effects were great but the character wasn't needed in my opinion. Venom should've been more in depth and the sole villain of the movie along with peter's battle with the darkness with in him. BTW, the scene with Evil Peter dancing like a tool was straight up brokeback.