Film Review - Spiderman 3

I arrived during the opening credits of Spiderman 3, only to find that the only remaining seats were in the first two rows of the theater. Inevitably, I had to watch all 140 minutes of the movie by panning my eyes from left to right to take in all the visuals. Also, the angle that I was sitting at made for an awkward perspective -- it was either the angle of my seat that made Tobey Maguire look at least ten pounds fatter or the actor's gained a few pounds since the last sequel. Either way, there were moments when I mistook Maguire for Bill Pullman. O.K., I digress.

Before you read, note that there are SPOILERS in the following review (so don't read if you have yet to see the film). If you don't want to read the spoilers, just scroll down and read a condensed version of this review.

Visually, Spiderman 3 is the most polished and spectacular of the trilogy. The $300+ million that went into the special effects results in Spidey at his most acrobatic, quickest and slickest. Watch the first fight scene between Spiderman and Harry Osborn, and you'll see that the special effects and choreography go beyond tired, old rehashes of slow-motion Matrix sequences.

There's a lot more to like about the film than just the special effects. Like the previous Spiderman films, the third one offers up plenty of the same endearing character development, this time with Peter Parker's ever-growing hubris. Like all tragic heroes, this same hubris will later come back to bite Spiderman in the ass. A bite in the form of Venom, Sandman and a fallout with long-time sweetheart Mary Jane.

For fans of the Spiderman comics, director Sam Raimi drops a few treats, like a brief, light-hearted cameo by Spiderman creator and comic book legend Stan Lee.

But with all of this aside, the Spiderman franchise shows signs of aging in the third film. The moral tales of the previous two films come across as forced and unconvincing in the third. This is most apparent when the oh-my-god-how-old-is-she-now Aunt May happens to drop by Peter's apartment just to deliver a few wise words on forgiveness and conveniently leaves after a visit that lasts no longer than ten minutes. The first film taught us that "with great power comes great responsibility," a quote that is made all the more powerful by Spiderman's early struggles with his powers. The second film was unexpectedly cathartic, giving Peter Parker a more human quality by allowing him to deal with his thankless, dangerous job of New York City superhero. The third film, however, has difficulty carrying that same emotional weight throughout the film.

Unfortunately, Spiderman 3 is plagued by its own ambition of featuring three potentially interesting villains (or "antagonists," since the Spiderman films have a sometimes-sincere, sometimes-annoying habit of trying to humanize its villains) and trying to piece together a whole film out of it. This ambition falls short. To develop the backstories and personalities of the characters like the first and second films did for Green Goblin and Dr. Octopus, the filmmakers would've had to make a fourth film (à la the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films).

To tie in three villains and an ongoing romantic struggle between Peter Parker and Mary Jane, the film uses impossible coincidences to drive the film forward. A symbiotic alien happens to land in the same forest where Peter and Mary Jane are enjoying a romantic night (the symbiote later attaches itself to Spiderman, leading him to have refreshing -- more on that later -- personality and superpower changes). Flint Marko, the runaway convict that killed Ben Parker (Peter's uncle), happens to land in a pile of radioactive sand while giving chase to the cops. Conveniently, he becomes the malformed Sandman, a vengeful supervillain bent on robbing a few banks to pay for the operation of his poor, sickly daughter.

Basically, Sandman is like John Q, but with superhuman strength and less likability. At the end, Spiderman and Sandman come to some contrived level of understanding, ultimately leading to Sandman floating away through the cityscape, never to be seen again. Bullshit! The guy causes probably millions of dollars in damage and injuries and Spiderman lets him go, expecting him to be reformed and pacifistic? It's not clear if the Sandman is eventually able to save his daughter. It's not even clear whether or not the Sandman has truly renounced his ways. He apologizes for "accidentally" killing Ben Parker and floats away after having been forgiven by Spiderman.

As for Venom, Thomas Haden Church plays a great foil to Peter Parker as Eddie Brock, a rival photographer who is everything that Peter isn't: egotistical, well-dressed, dishonest and morally flexible. The character of Eddie Brock also allows Sam Raimi to have a lot of fun with more of the humorous, tongue-in-cheek pop narrative that pervaded the second film. Peter Parker's reformation into a smooth-talking chauvinist (a transformation made possible by the alien symbiote) is refreshing and well-played. This part of the film is well-done in that it's as enjoyable for the audience as it looked fun for actor Tobey Maguire to play.

Most unconvincing of all, James Franco reprises his role as Harry Osborn, the still-bitter, still-creepy rich kid who's bitter that his father got his ass handed to him by Spiderman. In the first fight scene with Harry, Spiderman again kicks ass and lands Harry in a hospital bed. Harry suffers temporary amnesia and is unable to remember the events leading to his hospitalization. In other words, he doesn't remember anything about the Green Goblin or why he's mad at Peter Parker/Spiderman in the first place. Then later on in the film, for no apparent reason, he regains his memory and his anger. He and Peter Parker fight again, only to have his ass handed to him again. As if the audience wasn't already tired of this whiny, weakly trust fund baby, Harry vows to kill Spiderman after having half of his face burned away. But, again in another moment of impossible convenience, Harry's butler arrives to tell him that Yes, your father was the one that killed himself and therefore you shouldn't be such a self-loathing jerk-off.

After almost two whole films of desiring revenge and plotting to kill Spiderman, Harry Osborn realizes the error of his ways and decides to join Spiderman to help save Mary Jane from Venom and Sandman (who by convenience decided to work together to kill the web-crawling superhero). Shit! All it took was for some butler to intervene and tell the poor sap the truth about his father. Where was this butler in the last two films? Why did he decide to stay silent?

Another note about Venom and Sandman. Their collaboration is merely the product of narrative convenience. They have no true parallels, no common goal. They might have a common enemy, but that's not very convincing, especially since all Sandman wants to do is to save his bedridden daughter from dying. The only reason they're together is because the filmmakers needed to end the film with one epic battle between Spidey/Harry and Venom/Sandman. And even then, the two villains don't effectively collaborate and ultimately and obviously lose the battle. It's pretty underwhelming for what's supposed to be a kick-ass battle.

The sappiness behind Sandman's backstory is cringe-worthy. As always, the filmmakers tried to get the audience to feel sorry for the villain. "Look, he's not that bad. He just wants to save his daughter!" Please. If he really wanted to save his daughter, he wouldn't have caused loss of property and life to a whole section of downtown Manhattan. And after that, we're expected to forgive him and let him go like Spiderman did? That's criminal negligence.

Since this review is going on for much too long, I'm going to cut it short and give this final, condensed review.

SPOILERS end here. Condensed review is below.

Special effects/fight scenes = good
Character development/plot = bad
Peter Parker's struggle with his Superego and Id = interesting and worth watching
The continuous need for the filmmakers to moralize their audience = getting annoying and old