Spider-man 3

Let's, again, rewind to a time when Spider-man 3 was the most anticipated Superhero film coming out. It was a year prior to Iron Man's premiere and all my friends and I were interested in seeing, was the next chapter in the Spider-man trilogy.

And the result? As a kid, I really enjoyed it.

Spider-man 3 not only presented another installation of the franchise that could do no wrong in my mind, but it was introducing not one, not two, but three villains. It was the Revenge of the Sith of Superhero films (that being a good thing when I was a kid) as it brought full circle the fall to the dark side of Harry Osborn. It brought forth two totally new villains in Venom and Sandman.

Not only that, but it put Spider-man in a new suit. How could this not be anything but great?

To my surprise, a lot of people, even my friends who went with me were very disappointed with the film. As a 15-16 year old kid, I don't think I really understood why they were so disappointed. It was a Spider-man film. It had the action never seen before, it had the villains never seen before. What else could you ask for?

But the more and more I watch Spider-man 3... the more and more I realize why my friends were so critical.

Spider-man 3 essentially starts out in the exact opposite way Spider-man 2 did. In 2, everything was going to shit for Peter Parker. In 3, things are looking very up. Don't ask me how it magically turned fantastic but a lot of it has to do with the fact that Peter and Mary Jane are together now.

Mary Jane now knows that Peter is Spider-man and things seem to be going well for both of them.

So much that Peter feels its time to move the relationship to the next level and ask MJ to marry him.

While this is happening, a meteor hits the earth and a symbiotic organism crawls out of the crater and attaches its way back with Peter to his home.

Also, Harry has emerged from the cave of his father's old equipment and looks as though he's about to start doing some Spidey murdering.

On top of that, a convict by the name of Flint Marko (played by Thomas Haden Church) has escaped prison and is looking for a way to help his sick daughter.

After a conversation with Aunt May about the moral Peter will have to learn about himself and his relationships, Peter is on his way home and is attacked by the New Goblin, Harry.

Peter defeats him though and Harry is wounded. When he comes to... he has amnesia...

Sigh...

Along the way there is trouble between Peter and Mary Jane due a lot of instances of miscommunication and really badly written drama.

All the while, Eddy Brock (played by Topher Grace) is a new face to the Daily Bugle and works to oust Peter of a staff position he's been working for for a while.

And then they figure out that Flint Marko was the man who actually killed Uncle Ben.

And then the symbiotic organism melds its way onto Peter, creating a black suit that increases Spider-man's skills but amplifies the emotions and feelings Peter has towards his problems in the world.

I think I've pretty much covered the major plot points in this film, and by god, there are a lot of them.

I saw a Confused Matthew review of this film that really summed it up nicely. There are so many plot points in this film that its written in a way that the writers write one plot point into a corner and only come back to it when it is convenient to the script. And unfortunately its very true.

The best example of this is when Harry gets amnesia.

Harry geting amnesia doesn't serve the plot in any way. It doesn't serve as a moral dilemma that Peter faces, it doesn't put any conflict into Harry when he comes out of it. The only reason Harry gets amnesia is because they needed to find a way to suppress the New Goblin until they introduced all the other plot points and they had time to deal with it.

So if there were so many plot points that they needed to put others aside until they could get to them, why didn't they get rid of some of those plot points.

I know I've said in the last few reviews that I think Harry is probably the best cast character and the development they have him go through finally reaching this point was very good. But the way that it was executed in Spider-man 3 was just horrible. And therefore the real conflict of having Peter Parker's best friend turn against him is so completely rushed.

The movie itself is just a mess.

I would start talking about Marko Flint... but there's not really that much to talk about with him. He's bland, he's boring, he really didn't need to be in the film. Making him the guy who actually killed Uncle Ben was dumb and it just added to the bullshit that muddled this movie.

I will say however...

This scene was good. For about 30 seconds you see an actually heartfelt moment and not a word is spoken. Its very effective... but short lived.

The effects for the sandman are actually pretty good considering, but the character is so bland and so boring that when you take away all the action sequences and special effects, it really falls short. I have to give the movie credit for trying to squeeze in 3 villains in a movie because that is quite a feat, but I think this movie would have been at least a little bit better, and a lot less crowded if the entire storyline following Flint Marko and the fact he killed Ben Parker just... went away.

And that leads me to the black suit stuff that falls from space.

The black suit created a very interesting concept for Spider-man. What if he took that great power and fulfilled his great responsibility through bad means. Spider-man has always been the straight laced hero but what if he suddenly became an anti-hero.

Unfortunately, they do not get even close to that. Everything that Peter does that is considered "bad things" is something he would have done as regular Spider-man. The only difference is he tries to kill Flint Marko and I'm sorry, spraying him with water isn't exactly a great way to say, I'm a badass now.

The black suit is suppose to exacerbate the anger and rage within Spider-man but all it does is turn him into a doofus jerk. He turns in Eddie Brock. Yeah he's an asshole about it but Eddie Brock was forging photographs, he was wrong. There wasn't anything good about what he was doing.

He goes and beats up Harry. Harry was being a dick and was trying to kill Peter. Before Peter throws a grenade at his face, its obvious that Harry has picked up the mantle as the goblin again so taking him out is just another thing Spider-man would do if he had his regular suit. Yeah sure he pulled out this line.

But beyond that, this is nothing Peter Parker wouldn't do, black suit or not.

And while we're on the Black suit.

Why is Emo the look they decided to go with to make Peter Parker look all badass. Tobey Macguire looks stupid. And it'd be one thing if he actually was doing "bad things" with this new haircut but he doesn't.

I guess they were trying to go with a darker tone with Spider-man 3 but it instead just comes off as silly.

I mean, look at this and try, just try and tell me that this is the best they could do to make Peter Parker become the anti-hero... just try.

I still to this day have no idea what happened here. Somebody had to have been looking at this and said, "Sure, its kind of silly that Tobey Macguire is humping the air, but aren't we trying to make Peter Parker somewhat of an anti-hero, maybe a bad guy. And we're doing this by having him dance?"

Tobey Macguire had to have been reading through the script and just asked the director, "So when you say I come out of the store and hump the air, you mean... I actually hump the air?"And its not just this scene.

Its this entire scene here.

I mean I get that Peter is trying to make Mary Jane jealous... but by god, what the hell happened here?

Peter Parker dancing in front of Mary Jane doesn't make him a badass, it just kind of makes him a jerk. He's a jerk in this film and maybe that's what they're going for, but he looks stupid doing it.

Its just an entire sequence that I have no idea what happened. Sam Raimi, I just don't get what was your function at the moment you penned, Then Peter Parker dances.

Its just another part of the film that doesn't make much sense and doesn't really add to anything. Spider-man 2 raised this question of what happens if our heroes just say fuck it and quit. Spider-man 3 was suppose to, in the way I see the approach, suppose to be about what if our heroes use the immoral means to bring forth justice. What if Peter Parker decides to kill his enemies rather than just stop them like he's been doing. I'm not asking for Dark Knight moral implications, but lets get a little deeper here.

Peter Parker dancing does not add to the story or help the plot... its just stupid.

Oh by the way...

This Gwen Stacy sucks. I don't really know what Bryce Howard Dallas has done, before or since. But the way the character is written, the character is awful. Especially in comparison with Emma Stone's version.

And finally, let's talk about Eddie Brock.

As you probably know, I am not a huge comic book fan. That being the case, I don't know what Eddie Brock was suppose to be like. From what I understand, it wasn't Topher Grace.

I like Topher Grace. But the minute I heard he was playing a super villain, I was skeptical. The guy from That 70's Show?

There are a lot of castings that people have been skeptical about. And there are a lot of castings that have turned out to surprise people. Topher Grace as Eddie Brock/Venom is not one of those castings that turn out in the end.

In fact I think Topher Grace cast as Eddie Brock is one of the reasons we become skeptical about castings like Batfleck, Heath Ledger, and others. For as many castings that work out, there are a lot of castings that do not work out.

But its not just the casting that bothers me. Its the complete lack of Venom in this movie.

They had a major opportunity with this movie. I'm talking outside of any comic book knowledge, any knowledge of how the Venom story is suppose to go. But thinking about what direction they were trying to head in this movie, Venom could have been what happens if Spider-man went fully down the path of evil. Venom could have become the antithesis of Spider-man in way never really imagined before.

But you know what he was. He was a villain that came out in the last half hour of the movie. A just down right truly awful villain.

Venom was just a waste of time, almost enough to say that they should have just left him out when all was said and done. Which is a bummer because there's a lot of potential for Venom. Maybe they'll make that solo movie they've been talking about. But until then, Venom will just be a sad 15 minute cameo.

The rest of the movie is still just a down right mess.

Mary Jane becomes a little bit more of a character but with the style that the Spider-man films have followed, it comes off as whiny. The two just don't really know how to have a relationship with each other.

I wanted to talk about the fact that Mary Jane's problems seem really convoluted, especially the fact she was fired from her show. Now I know what its like to be out of work. It sucks. But Mary Jane is in acting, she should know that its not always going to be Broadway acting and getting a job waiting tables is not a ridiculous move, at least until the next gig. Therefore I found her problems kinda silly and the script just makes Peter Parker so oblivious to the entire thing. In short, this was a relationship doomed to fail.

But what makes it stupid is that Peter Parker has been waiting so long for this relationship to happen and he's just a doofus about it. It goes in the face of everything the first two movies were building up for.

Thinking about this movie has made me want to do a similar treatment the popular, "What if Star Wars Episode 1 was good?" did on Star Wars The Phantom Menace. So I declare it, my next post will be a post speculating on "What if Spider-man 3 was good?"

But on the movie itself, Spider-man 3 is just a mess. Its too crowded, with characters, with plot points, with cheesy campy acting, with dumb characters dealing with their problems in dumb ways. Its just a mess. To give some credit, the action was good... I enjoyed it as a kid and I enjoy it now...

But those are my thoughts. What did you think of Spider-man 3? Is there anything I missed? Are there some redeeming qualities to it besides the action? Comment and discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. I'm sure I miss a lot of things that were wrong with Spider-man 3. I think one of the best videos pointing out things wrong with it is How It Should Have Ended. This is actually one of their best. Enjoy!

Stay tuned for my "What if Spider-man 3 was good?" post. Coming soon!