My Rambling, Should be Far More Coherent Spider-Man 3 Review

Spider-Man 3

Sadly, the sequel rule holds. While Spider-Man 3 isn’t a complete Batman Forever-styled disaster, it completely fails on a dramatic level. Raimi has always given the Spider-Man a slight tongue in cheek sensibility but this time the movie is so blatantly campy that all of the dramatic moments lack any sort of power or meaning.

The action scenes are easily the best in the series, and even though the climax takes place at a rather dull construction site every slice of action still feels fresh, exciting, and worth every penny that Sony spent.

The plotting itself is really quite solid. The problem is that some characters feel more like pieces in a puzzle than actual living beings. More on this later. The actual structure manages to juggle lots and lots of characters in the air fairly well, but nearly every character could have used more scenes. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the dialogue is very standard comic action movie jargon and feels lifeless. Far too much nuance is left up to the large cast to adequately make the movie about something more than filling Sony’s coffers. Some are up to the task… others not so much.

Topher Grace and Bryce Dallas Howard are a complete joy to watch in their (very) limited screentime. Raimi has repeatedly stated again and again that Venom was never his favorite and unfortunately it shows in the final print. Raimi does the bare minimum with Venom to meet the criteria. Oh sure, he does everything we expect a film venom to do. But there’s no big re-thinking on what the character means or what he should stand for in the bigger context of the film. Remember how SM2 took Doctor Octupus and focused on his science-turned-bad persona? There’s none of that here. The script treats him as a plot point, and if it weren’t for Topher Grace’s obvious glee and scene stealing delivery this entire section of the film would have been a muddled mess. Taking a cue from Bendis, Eddie Brock isn’t a sadistically evil person pre-Venom; he’s just the sort of sleaze who would hit on your girlfriend right after sleeping with his.

Suprisingly I absolutely adored Gwen Stacy’s character and even though she is, once again, little more than a plot point I found myself falling in love with this old character from the comic books brought to life.

My favorite period in the entire 40+ years of Spider-Man comics is right after Peter had graduated high school. All of a sudden, Puny Peter Parker had a new supporting cast headlined not only by a new friend but two incredibly hot girls. It all read brilliantly with nerdy Parker literally having to push away two completely different yet equally appealing women. This comes across in bits and pieces throughout the film but it feels that, as of now, there is a missed opportunity.

Sandman is note perfect, and one wonders how the same film that could take a C-lister like Sandman and make him compelling could also take the Peter and Mary Jane dynamic from the first films and make it dull and uninteresting. Since the symbiote’s capability is never defined, we never know how much of Peter’s actions is him and how much is the suit. Even Pre-Suit, Peter still feels unnaturally grumpy throughout. When you’re waiting for Topher Grace to finally beat the tar out of that Jerk Peter Parker, you know something is not quite right with the world.

Kirsten Dunst never felt ideal to me as Mary Jane, but she won me over by the time the credits rolled at the end of the second film. That last scene in Peter’s apartment…. Pure magic. Here though, she’s more of a shrew then the first two films ever portrayed her as. Tobey and Kirsten’s performances, although no means bad, feel lifeless and uninspired.

On the plus side, James Franco delivers a solid improved performance from the first two outings.

I mentioned earlier that the movie feels far too campy, and I want to be clear here. Spider-Man 2 had the infamous “raindrops” musical sequence and even the first film wasn’t afraid to have some fun in their universe. There is a dance number that comes as the “highlight” to the Dark Peter portion of the storyline that many, many hated. The thing is, that sequence isn’t the problem. It’s completely over the top but it’s meant to be played for laughs and it gets laughs. The catch here is that The real issue is that even when the film is supposed to be big and DRAMATIC, Raimi still plays it like a comedy. Harry and Peter have their massive “3 films in the making” confrontation… while Peter has an emo haircut. Throughout the entire sequence I couldn’t help but chuckle in what was, I assume, to be meant as a serious scene. Then again, how serious can Peter parker be when wearing eyeliner?