It’s as if a rule exists in Hollywood that as a franchise progresses, subsequent sequels must lose the luster that attracted audiences to its initial installments. While there are a few exceptions along the way, many franchises like Batman, Superman, The Matrix and The X-Men movies slowly but surely degrade by the third and fourth sequels. The reason for this phenomenon is simple; studios want to attract the widest possible audience with their initial effort, establishing a successful formula while showcasing their best and most substantial content right out of the gate. As the first of the major 2007 summer blockbusters swinging into theaters, Spider-Man 3 proves without a doubt that rules are meant to be broken.
For web-heads, the long three-year wait since the last Spider-Man epic has finally come to an end. While director Sam Raimi fell just short of matching his franchise best with Spider-Man 2, the series’ third installment casts such a big web that the balancing act the filmmaker achieves is nothing short of amazing.
Picking up where the last film left off, Peter Parker is on top of the world. A peaceful New York City loves him, his girlfriend, Mary Jane, is finally headlining her first Broadway production and the webslinger couldn’t be more content. Of course things can’t always be so easy, especially for a hero that seems to constantly get picked on by the series’ founder Sam Raimi.
With the emergence of not one, not two, but three new super villains, Raimi has stacked the deck against our friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. To top that off, Mary Jane’s acting career takes a turn for the worse and her newfound jealousy of Peter’s beautiful, new lab partner, Gwen Stacey (Bryce Dallas Howard), doesn’t help matters, especially with the blonde bombshell’s very public crush on Spider-Man.
With all these new narrative threads building towards the epic conclusion of Spider-Man 3, one begins to wonder how Raimi will be able to tie it all together into a conclusion which will end this three-part story arc on a high note. Not to mention he has to address the unresolved narrative holdovers from the previous films, such as Peter’s ever evolving guilt and anger over the death of his Uncle Ben and his love/hate relationship with his former best friend and son of the deceased Green Goblin, Harry Osborne (James Franco).
With all this stress mounting on Peter it only seems natural for his overly chipper, dorky demeanor to dim. That is the strength of Spider-Man 3, its willingness to explore the dark side of the franchise, a place this particular superhero franchise hasn’t been yet. Like the previous films, Raimi has again mirrored Spiderman 3 off of the Christopher Reeve Superman pictures. While we saw Tobey Maguire giving up his powers in Spiderman 2 so he could live a normal life (ala Superman II), here we see the actor portray a dark version of Spidey, following a similar concept which drove the third Superman film. As with the previous Spiderman installments though, Raimi has managed to best the material he seems to be paying homage too.
In Spider-Man 3 a dark substance, which treats us to “Evil Dead”-like, first person point of view shots, turns our hero into the black suited Spider-Man, a far meaner version of the superhero. More aggressive and filled with uncontrollable power, this “symbiote” bonds itself to our hero, feeding on his anger. This makes not only for great internal conflict, but a beautiful contrast to the second Spider-Man picture. When Peter Parker was on top of the world after abandoning his powers in Spider-Man 2, we were treated to a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek montage of Maguire blissfully strutting down the New York streets. In Spider-Man 3, Maguire again gets to strut down the Gotham streets in another ingenious montage, but his newfound attitude gives the sequences a whole new, hilarious edge.
However it is the combination of these fantastic character and story nuances with the big budget, visual effects heavy action which have made the Spiderman films a success, and Raimi has once again hit the perfect balance and tone to not only make Peter Parker’s latest adventure emotional, humorous and charming, but a visual thrill ride to boot. With stunning designs for new villains The Sandman (Thomas-Hayden Church) and Venom (Topher Grace), along with brilliant set pieces to host the action, Raimi has the opportunity to let his imagination run absolutely wild, making each exciting action sequence a blast to watch.
Disappointingly, with so much ground to cover in one film, Raimi had to use some narrative cheats to further the story. Rather than letting Spiderman discover the villains’ diabolical plot, inevitably building towards the epic climax of the picture, we are brought up to narrative speed by news reporters. While this does speed the plot along, it comes across more as a campy cheat to skimp on celluloid.
Another minor gripe is the minimal screen time and underwhelming stature of Venom, perhaps the villain most hotly awaited by Spider-Man fans to grace the big screen. Despite Raimi’s public acknowledgment of his dislike for the character, the director beautifully created escalating tension that builds towards the birth of Venom. The minimal screen time following the villain’s climactic creation will likely underwhelm audiences. Luckily Topher Grace’s performance is exceptional, bringing the perfect, cocky attitude toward the character, almost making the fact that he is far too small for the monstrous villain’s size a moot point.
Tying a trilogy to a substantial and agreeable close is a difficult feat for any filmmaker. Luckily for Sam Raimi and company, keeping the same creative staff onboard for all three Spider-Man pictures helped create a strong narrative and thematic thread which let Spiderman 3 be the ultimate culmination of this particular story arc. While Spider-Man 2 is still the strongest entry into the franchise, the latest picture successfully cements the Spider-Man films as the best superhero trilogy ever produced.
-Joe Russo, MoviePulse
I went to see it over the week-end. Like Mike, I was very fearful that with so much going on, it would look like an utter mess of a film, but I was pleasantly surprised. The three super-villains, which I thought was going to be too much, had stories that were woven together quite adeptly, and made for a movie that didn’t seem as crowded as I’d feared.
(Spoilers!) This movie was such a disappointment! My initial excitement turned to scorn as the movie progressed. I didn’t expect an instant classic, but the cheesy dialogue and the video game-like chases were simply unforgivable. As for the plot… Did I miss the reason outer space goo would go specifically after our hero? Why must Peter turn into a bad imitation of The Mask? Who thought Topher Grace would make a good bad guy? And why, oh *why* must MJ always have to be rescued (besides shutting up her irritating screams)? Finally, does being “forgiven” by a superhero mean you don’t have to face any consequences for all the people you hurt? And flying sand?! Oh, the more I think about it the less I like it. To say *something* positive, the only moments I enjoyed were the great Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell cameos and Rosemary Harris’ acting. Needless to say, this was not enough.
Sophia is right. It was not good. Better then DareDevil but wors then DareDevil Directors kut.
The effects was Bad. it hade the same plotpoints that 2 had. Venom talked out of synk.
And dont get me started on the kids.
Suspension of disbelief folks. What makes movies like Batman Begins or Star Wars3, 4, 5, and 6 (or Heroes) work is that no matter how fantastic it is, you can set that aside because it resonates believably.
Tobey Maguire is not the actor he was in the Cider House Rules. His sniveling whiny crying when MJ gives him the boot is not only pitiful – the acting was totally high school. And MJ and Harry doing the Twist while cooking in pseudo-domestic tranquility – sort of what I would expect in a High School musical – except even a High School drama coach would oust the scene because it slows the momentum of the narrative and adds nothing. That scene should have been on the cutting room floor.
What should have been the most horrific (because it could be believed) scene – where Peter stikes MJ brought derisive (albeit embarrassed) snickers from the audience when it happened because it was so unbelieveably and poorly done.
And was I the only one embarassed when Raimi allowed Maguire to do the cheesy dance routine in the bar (note to Raimi – Jerry Lewis played pseudo-clumsy/cool in the Nutty Professor 50 years ago – and nailed it; perhaps you should have watched that befdore choreographing this scene).
Maguire as college student – not that he is old (heck, I’m 54) but he’s getting a double chin for crying out loud! Sure he’s in shape, but no one would believe he’s a 20-something college student any more.
Ya know something is wrong when you know you should be tearing up when Harry dies and all you can do is decide whether to laugh at Tobey starting to cry again or sigh with relief that the movie is almost over.
The CGI stuff was good (except for the “birth” of the Sandman – that was cartoonish).
And Sophia was right about Stan Lee, Bruce Campbell, and Rosemary Harris. Let’s not forget JK Simmons and Willen Dafoe. Simmons was hilarious and his comic timing impeccable – from the guy who played Vern Schillinger in Oz and the shrink on Law and Order. The guy’s acting chops know no bounds. And Willem Dafoe – whatever they paid him for his 10 seconds of film time was too little. He can teach all the other Spidey villains how to act menacing and evil!
Aside from that, the biggest diasppointment of the year (darn – Shrek better be good……).