Spider-Man 3 Reviews Only - Page 2

Adam_WM · 05-06-2007, 08:05 PM

Overall, I enjoyed it about as much as I figured I would. It would be VERY tough to improve on solid Spider-Man 1 and even more solid Spider-Man 2.

POSITIVES: Action scenes are very good. Venom was cool and really translated very well to screen. The Sandman was just as he should have been. Awesome watching him fight Spidey.

NEGATIVES. MJ, MJ, MJ, MJ, MJ, Kirsten Dunst, MJ, and Kirsten Dunst.
I thought Peter's "taking the suit off and putting it in a trunk" was kind of dumb. Two back to back dance sequences was over the top.

On a whole, though, if you like the first two, this should be enjoyable. Not a TOP NOTCH superhero flick, but certainly very good.

Bryan Ri · 05-06-2007, 08:32 PM

What an utter disappointment.

While it would be near impossible to top the near perfect Spider-Man 2, we could have at least received an enjoyable continuation of the story. Instead we get a muddled, sloppy script with too many loose plot threads that don't pay off.

Let's start with the villains. In the previous Spider-Man movies the villains had some sort of logical origin and more importantly, the audience could have a chance in sympathizing with them. Osborne was about to lose his company, only to then have it stolen right out from under him. Octavious (despite the cliche) had a legit science experiment go wrong, and lost the love of his life in the process.

Here, we have a rock fall out of the sky, and a man fall into a hole. Are we supposed to feel bad for the Sandman because we see him visit a sick daughter once? What is her ailment? Why does he need money? What kind of person was he BEFORE he made his poor choices? Who IS his daughter? He literally could have been taken out of the movie, with the plot being changed very little.

The symbiont would have perfectly tied into Jameson coming back from space. Instead it randomly falls out of the sky. This is flat out poor writing. The scenes with "Bad Boy" Peter went on a bit too long, and would have been served much better with fleshed out scenes with the established characters.

I enjoyed the rivalry with Eddie Brock, and I feel more of this would have served the story much more than the Sandman. We didn't necessarily need Venom for the entire movie, but it would have made the story much less cluttered.

Finally we have Harry and the Goblin. I enjoyed that first fight and the idea that he lost his memory. I didn't enjoy his exploitation of Mary Jane (which inexplicably was dropped and never paid off) nor did I like his teaming with Spidey at the end. I'm glad his character was in the movie, but again it suffered from poor storytelling.

The action was great, the effects were amazing, and the cast was still charming. Overall the problems lay with Raimi and the creative team. They could have, and should have done much better.

Edwin-S · 05-07-2007, 05:31 AM

I was expecting a major disaster from reading the reviews in here. Overall, I thought the movie was entertaining. It could have used some tightening up to improve the pacing. The "stray cat strut" sequence should have been cut, since it bordered on the cringeworthy. The jazz club sequence didn't bother me as much as it did a lot of other who have posted in here. It was a little over the top but it was a minor nit considering that the subject of the movie is beyond over the top.

If I was a long time fan of the comics then I would probably be much more critical of the movie; however, I'm not a Spiderman fan so I found the movie was an entertaining enough escape for a couple of hours. I found it to be not much worse and not much better than the first two entries in the series.

Tino · 05-07-2007, 07:50 AM

Exactly what I expected. A notch below Spidey 1 and nowhere near Spidey 2.

I agree with most of the complaints, however I was still able to enjoy the film.

Les Samuel · 05-07-2007, 08:31 AM

I saw Spiderman III @ the Dulles IMAX saturday night and I had a great time and I thought the movie was very good, especially since there is so much going on. To me Raimi ultimately pulls it off. Can someone please tell me what movie in recent history has special effects of this stature? It's better than anything I've seen to date eclipsing every Star Wars film and all LOTR films...

The general consensus will be too much going on, too many story lines as the negative. I think the rest is nit picking, was the singing out of place, not to me since MJ is an actress trying to make it on Broadway. Many complain about the Parker Shuffle when thinks he's the hottest guy on the planet, did it make me cringe, yeah because that's not Peter Parker.

Was it one of those movies worthy of applause at the end, not to me but half the crowd @ the IMAX did just that, I guess they enjoyed it as well...

Scott_lb · 05-07-2007, 02:17 PM

Saw it last night - what a disaster (and I wasn't expecting much). I especially didn't like how there was no real end to the Sandman storyline - he simply flew away (presumably to commit more crimes to raise money to save his daughter) with no chase ensuing. Maybe the next people he robs or kills will forgive him like Parker did because he's really a nice guy who's simply trying to make ends meet. What a load of garbage. No repeat viewing for me and no Blu-Ray purchase (although I'll be buying 1 and 2).

Abby_B · 05-07-2007, 04:20 PM

I thought it was okay. It was a fun movie, definitely worth seeing on the big screen for the effects alone, but I also thought that it felt a little bit bloated, character and plot wise, and I think making it tighter would have made it a better film. It was still a great summer popcorn flick, for sure, but it wasn't the great movie it could have been, if that makes sense.

chris rick · 05-07-2007, 05:31 PM

I think it is fantastic and a cut above Spidey 1 and almost on par with the second installment. I think the problem is honestly (and I'm not normally one to buy this logic) the hype got to some people and they expected perfection. Let's face it, no current franchise (even POTC) is as big as this one. The villains were great and Sandman was absoultely as good a villain as Doc Oc--sympathetic to a point and a character that we are able to empathize with. I think also that Toby was perfect as was Dunst. The visual effects are pretty much unparalelled outside of a few films I've ever seen. Topher Grace was very good, but in one of the films weak spots, a tad underused. Biggest gripe (but with a wink): I really feel that this was the swan song for this series hence the singing/dancing, and sometimes borderline cheesy sequences. Raimi is like a circus promoter here juggling all of the plot lines and action sequences, and in my opinion he succeedes spectacularly for the most part.

Pete-D · 05-07-2007, 05:47 PM

I would give it a 5.5/10

It's the Superman III of the Spider-Man series. Too much, too over-the-top, too plot heavy.

Surprisingly for a movie you'd expect to get a bit darker with the whole symboite/Venom storyline ... the movie actually gets far sillier in tone.

It also really showed that Raimi was forced to add Venom and that whole story arc ... Sandman was definitely the more interesting villian, but in the end, he got short changed too. I almost got the sense are certain times in the movie Raimi is basically throwing his hands up and almost saying "whatever ... I just don't care anymore", which might have been an attitude fostered by too much interference from Sony. A big shame.

The bad thing is the audience that I saw it with was really cracking up at parts they weren't supposed to. The scene were MJ is "forced" to break up with PP drew big laughs. They definitely lost the tone.

Yet in some mishmashed way it's still entertaining. It gets into that "so bad, it's good" territory though, which the first two films never needed to go to. Honestly I know people rip X3 a lot, but I think X3 is actually better than this.

Venom is a total waste, and Grace plays the character of Eddie Brock pretty much like a cocky version of the guy he is in the 70s Show ... which lead to more unintended laughter from the audience.

The one bright spot is Bryce Dallas Howard. She's only in the movie briefly and her character is nothing more than a plot device, but she seems to have better chemistry than Dunst's Mary Jane (who has some terribly bad lip-synced musical numbers). Also the girl who is the landlord's daughter next door to PP's apartment gets some fun scenes in this one.

BrettV · 05-07-2007, 06:14 PM

Saw SM-3 at the cinerama dome (arclight) in downtown hollywood.

I don't really get what all the hate is about. I loved it. Lots of action, fun storyline ..

I didn't really think parker was 'emo' either .. if he were emo, he wouldn't have been tough. He'd have sat back and cried. I'd say he was more goth.

I thought they did a great job of showing how dramatically the suit was affecting his personality.

And you can complain about the number scenes, but I found them fun.

Pete-D · 05-07-2007, 09:12 PM

The movie wasn't very good that's the problem. Most comic books have a "morality" center to them. Pretty much every Marvel character has that. Big whoop. Because it's a morality tale doesn't give it a pass for a bad script, shoe-horned characters, a wildly flucuating tone, bad acting, and numerous other issues.