Sony has a track record of making very good products with “2” in the title but then having the “3”‘s be subject to critical lashing. The trend continues with Spider-Man 3, which is storming into theatres this weekend. What did I think of it, myself being a person who considers Spider-Man 2 the best comic book hero movie ever and Batman Begins good but quite overrated? Read on!
Going into this I figured it would be at least decent since they had made a great sequel with “2” and if they were going to screw it up they would have done it there. On that note I also fully expected it to be worse than the first 2 movies, but this would still make it better than most crap in theatres. The scene in “2” where his aunt insists he takes a 20 dollar bill and then cries about it is more human and identifiable than anything in the “rich angst boy fights crime with crappy closeup camerawork” fest that was the grossly overrated Batman Begins. Just the fact that Kirsten Dunst, weird teeth and all, is actually a character with a tangible link to the hero versus Mrs Tom Cruise showing up in “Begins” as “the woman” and basically nothing else is proof positive that Raimi and Co. are the kings of this genre.
Then came the reviews of “3”. Barely fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and decidedly mixed overall. This led me to believe it could actually suck balls or turn into a Batman Forever / and Robin.
With my expectations lowered (perhaps Sony paid the critics to do this?) the movie actually turned out a bit better than I had feared/hoped. I’ll touch on the major criticisms first:
1) Underdeveloped villains – This is indeed a problem. Doc Ock from “2” was terrific, William Dafoe from “1” dressed as a Power Ranger but his motivations were sound. In “3” the villains just kind of show up and start trouble. It’s not bad, but a setback from the first 2 movies. Green Goblin 2 doesn’t really count as a villain because he’s barely in the movie. I did like what they did with his character though. The effects on Sandman are cool and his “forming” scene is very sad and classic Raimi (though he doesn’t yell “JULIEEEEEE!!!”).
2) Song and dance and “kitchen twist and shout omelet scene”. Not really that long and it’s fairly believable. If critics can praise 15 f’ing minutes of woman sitting around talking about BS in “Death Proof” I don’t see why 2 minutes in a kitchen is a deal-breaker for “3”. News flash – Raimi pisses on Tarantino – there I said it.
3) Peter Parker Turns Emo – As Spider-Man 2 was like Superman 2 this one definately has some Superman 3 vibes going on, noteably Spider-Man/Parker turning “evil”. But I found it funny, and you have to realize it’s the evil “Venom” stuff, not Peter Parker, doing these terrible things. His “I am a sex magnet badass” sequence in this is no more cheesy than the “Raindrops keep falling on my head” sequence from “2”.
Other than that, not too shabby. I think critics give this one a hard time since “1” and especially “2” were so good… Along those same lines critics praised Batman Begins and to some extent Rocky 6 (Balboa) highly possibly because their previous entries were so bad. When you hit rock bottom (Batman and Robin) you can only go up, when you hit the heavens (Spider-Man 2) you can only go down.
The crowd in the theatre seemed to dig it, afterwards I heard a few people even saying “that was better than the second one”. Of course they are wrong, but still, it goes to show that what a critic likes is far and away and 50 leagues from what the general public will like. (See Wild Hogs, Pirates 2, any comedy…) If you’re not a critic snob or film geek and just like movies for what they are, you probably won’t have any major issues with Spider-Man 3. Of course I thought X-Men 3 was totally decent and Fantasic Four was watchable so what do I know?
Some highlights before I close out this entry:
1) Bill Paxton’s dad, who played the butler, gets much more screentime in this film, including some closeups!
2) James Cromwell, who should of won an Oscar in 1996 dammit, appears for about 12 seconds in this movie. But they are 12 quality seconds by gum!
3) The Russian landlord and daughter are back! And once again he says “Rent!”. The scene with the cookies and “Evil Emo Parker” is also quite funny.
4) The movie didn’t seem as long as people had made it out to be.
Don’t worry folks, we’ve got Spider-Man 4 to look forward to. Now that’s a movie that will truly suck – even worse than Die Hard 4 will.
X3 was a pile of crap. Would be easier to take this review more seriously if you’d kept that little nugget as deep in your closet of skeletons as possible.
JULIEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
Yea, Raime rocks. Umm. I also liked xmen3 and Fantastic4, and I think fantastic4-2 is going to be awesome also.
I thought the movie was good, not perfect, but good. Also that sandman morph scene was probably the best and most believable cg morphing I’ve probably ever seen…. I’m not entirely sure you can get more real looking than that.
How I define ‘real’ looking would be, if you convinced someone that it was footage of something really happening maybe about 20ish years ago, would they believe it.
I’m rambling a lot and I forgot all of what I was going to say. The dancing scenes were great, the cookie scene was great.
For a minute there on those dancing scenes, I was like….. this is turning into the Mask……… in a good way though.
Also Bruce’s scene was just hillarious. Me and the misses were dying through that whole part. I don’t think anyone else in the theater got it. Which was annoying, but oh well. Ok I’m done for now. ttyl
HaHa i know what you mean i caught his name in the opening credits and was like no way!, but i guess i should have figured since its a Raimi picture
I enjoyed this movie. The action scenes were simply amazing. I didnt like all the close-ups they did every 20 seconds. I mean, I didn’t come to the movie to see whats up spiderman’s nose.
I loved the emo spiderman aswell. I like how he made it a point to put his hair down whenever he had the suit on.
Just to let everyone know, I’ve been hearing reports that this is Toby McGuire’s last spiderman movie. Something about him not wanting to get typecasted.
http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/03/06/spider-man-4-still-planned-with-or-without-tobey-maguire/
I just got back, and wasn’t bad. I think the badass Peter scenes were too long. We get it, he’s evil now… I didn’t hate it, but I can definitely see what the critics hated about it.
Definitely the best of the three films. I wanna check it out again on IMAX!!! =D That would be awesome!!!
I’ve read a couple reviews saying the butler wasn’t in the first 2 movies. What a load. What, does he need Alfred “Batman Butler” screentime or otherwise “he wasn’t in it”.
All 3 Spider-Man movies has the magical powers of the Paxton dynasty in them!
I very disliked the butler’s main scene: (SPOILER)
Butler: “Oh Harry, there’s something I haven’t told you for all these years…uh yeah… your dad killed himself, and your entire revenge plot against spiderman was meaningless. Sorry about that, old chap!”
Harry: “I forgive you! I forgive EVERYONE! In fact, I think I’ll sacrifice my life because I’m so happy that my dad went crazy and killed himself!”
I loved it, and do not understand how people say the villains were not developed. Quite a bit of time is spent on Sandman and his life’s difficulties. Like when he visits home and sees his daughter. Eddie Brock was not quite as developed, but he is slowly introduced. Oh, and Stan Lee was in there too, making it amazing.
I thought the movie was great. I think the reason people didn’t like it to much is because everyone was expecting a masterpiece like 1 and 2 but those were amazing movies and extremely rare to find a movie anywhere near that good. Spiderman 3 is a good movie if you compare it to other movies that have come out recently. The only thing i didn’t like in this movie is about the first 30 minutes i was trying to figure out what was going on and also i thought the final battle lasted about 5 minutes to long. The movie is better the second time you watch it because you know somewhat what is going on. I havent seen a movie this good for quite some time now.
Caught it on IMAX yesterday…wow.
I thought it was the best of the three for one reason. The ending was so awesome. I thought that the middle was boring, where it was all about poor Marry Jane and losing her job. But that was all made up for by the ultra climactic end battle, though I am really disappointed that they disrespected Venom so much by giving him 20 minutes of screen time, since he is one of the most important and long running characters in the Spider Man series. It was also dissapointing that they only showed full force Venom for a few seconds before blowing him up.
I thought it was the best of the three for one reason. The ending was so awesome. I thought that the middle was boring, where it was all about poor Marry Jane and losing her job. But that was all made up for by the ultra climactic end battle, though I am really disappointed that they disrespected Venom so much by giving him 20 minutes of screen time, since he is one of the most important and long running characters in the Spider Man series. It was also dissapointing that they only showed full force Venom for a few seconds before blowing him up.
Bruce Campbell’s part was absolutely hilarious, I couldn’t stop laughing. Over all, there were tons of problems, But it had so many redeeming qualities that I still think that it pulled forward of the second one. I hope that they will bring Venom back for the fourth one, I mean there is still that piece of venom in Peter’s professor’s lab, so maby there is a chance for real Venom action.
I like the movies that make me think, during and after the screening.
Spiderman 3 make me turn off the barin, so i could like it.
No reflections on evil-inside-us, no morally ambigous contents, and no fucking dialogue between hero and villains.
And why the Sandman’s daughter disapperas in the last two hours of the movie? He doesn’t mention her even in the “look-I’m-sorry-i-killed-your-uncle-Iwas-gentle-and-I-helped-him-crossing-the-street” final.
And the last time I’ve seen the “evil hairstyle”, was in Murnau’s Faust (1931?).
Childish and simplicistic, IMO.
“Look Mom, I’m going to the hairstyler: do not be scared when I’ll come back evil and cruel.”
Does Raimi think that we are so stupid that we can’t judge the character’s morality without having a aesthetic clues?
What about a pair of hornes, two wings and the red skin for the next movie?
I thought the best part was Vruce Campbell’s cameo, he had a far better and longer one than in 1 or 2! The Chin Man! Cmon Evil Dead 4, no whammys….