Spider-Man 3 Reviews Only

Chuck Mayer · 05-04-2007, 01:44 AM

Quite disappointing. I consider Spidey 2 one of the best genre films made, and it towers over most superhero films. Spidey 3 is a major step down.

It's a drama, first and foremost. And while it succeeds at the second most critical aspect of a drama (acting), it falls short at a script level.

It's not terrible, but it's juggling far too many balls, and never makes any of them particularly interesting. There is a fantastic segment in the middle (the dark side of Spidey), but not much around it is really honed or tight.

The good: the acting is a major step-up for the leads. In the end, it sort of works, in spite of itself. They really do save the film.

The bad:
Very little Sandman. After Molina's incredible Doc Ock, the villains seemed very pedestrian. One scene with his daughter does not a rounded character make. I understand (though disagree with) tying Marko to the death of Uncle Ben. It's the major theme of the film.

Some real quirky oddball moments that seem out of tune with the tone set by the rest of the films. Maybe I am missing the mark here, but some of it seemed screwball (or cheeseball) in a very bad way. It contrasted rather strongly with the soap opera elements of the script.

The effects with the black suit weren't great (Venom or Spidey) either. Some of the action was good...some of it was rather poor.

I'll be seeing this again with the wife, and I hope to like it better the second time. It's not terrible. It's just...there.

I could nickel and dime it, but it's late. Again, the acting was quite good. Better than the previous two films. That's something.

And lastly, f*** teenagers.

6/10,
Chuck

Patrick Sun · 05-04-2007, 02:05 AM

I think "Disappointing" will be the operative word used when reviewing Spider-Man 3. There are some awful emo-Parker scenes that just made me cringe, but some of the Darker Parker scenes almost made up for it in the mid-section of the film. The villains and their motivations are threadbare and just uninteresting and made for a very uninvolving last act.

The fight scenes looked clunky and just didn't quite strike the right balance of amazing action sequences and the "cool" factor. It got downright repetitive and vertigo-inducing far too much.

There are comic relief scenes that just utterly stop the film dead in its tracks to its detriment. Raimi took a step backwards with this installment of the Spider-Man franchise. It almost had the feel of a cash-grab, with very little to say, or what was said was so clumsily executed and drab.

I give it 2.5 stars or a grade of C+, which is being charitable.

Jonathan · 05-04-2007, 02:10 AM

I don't think I have heard as many groans as I heard while watching Spider-Man 3 since I saw Batman & Robin in the theater.

I have to say though that I did love Bruce Campbell's part.

Jerome Grate · 05-04-2007, 08:40 AM

Three in a row, with disappointing reviews already, should be interesting this time tomorrow here and on other sites.

Chad R · 05-04-2007, 09:22 AM

The Theory of Relativity just ain't for physics. I love "Spider-Man 2" and hold it up there with "Superman: the Movie" and "Batman Begins" as the great comic book adaptations. Yes, this film is disappointing. However, since it comes off such a great predecessor, that relatively speaking, this third film is a horrific, overblown mess.

The operative phrase for this film is simply; too much. So much needed to be cut from this film. Sandman wasn't interesting, had a laughable origin, and a "humanizing" backstory that went nowhere. He didn't need to be in this film.

Gwen Stacy isn't the character from the comics. in fact, she has very little character in this film. She should have been cut. The plot needs a romantic foil for MJ, but Raimi should have gone with the obvious choice of using Betty Brant, who does have romantic history with Peter in the comics, rather than introduce a new character whom he gives no time to develop at all.

The conflict between MJ and Peter should have been handled with more nuance and subtlety than it is. If Raimi had concentrated on developing two strong scenes to show distress in their relationship they would have added up to be more than the half dozen or so painful scenes he has, and this subplot would have been successful.

There's too many attempts at humor that ultimately doesn't work. I don't know if Raimi realized he wasn't making a comedy or not to tell you the truth. There's a sequence that's meant to show Peter being affected by the symbiote, which should show a dark side, but instead shows a penchant for Travolta inspired silliness. As if that scene wasn't bad enough, he tops it with an incredibly amateurish scene in a jazz club which ends the Gwen Stacy storyline, but doesn't resolve it. That storyline, in actuality, never gets resolved. That's just messy storytelling.

The two elements that could have worked are the Venom and Harry Osborn storylines. If they had been given more time to breathe, the film might have been saved. The deletion of Gwen Stacy and Sandman would have gone a long way in accomplishing that goal. Conceptually and thematically, they were the stories that fit best with the overall film whereas the other two stories were just shoehorned in there.

But, just because they worked conceptually, doesn't mean they worked in practice. The Venom aspect was halfway there. Raimi almost understands him, but misses some of the key points. The symbiote is almost a character unto itself, and it has a relationship with Brock in the comics, but not here. He never refers to himself as 'we.' It's not developed that the symbiote hates Parker for casting him off as much as Brock does for showing him up. Some more screen time might have brought this out.

Harry, on the other hand, starts off strong, but then they take such an enormous left turn twenty minutes in that it derails the character. After a bad bump on the head Harry gets what is reported to be short term memory loss, but it practically turns him into an idiot savant. He doesn't revert back to the character he was before his memory is missing, a character we've seen. Instead, he grins ear to ear like a moron and even remarks at how amazed he is that he's wealthy. When Peter produces an old basketball they used to play with, I swear I thought Harry was going to start screaming, "Franks and Beans!"

When Harry does get back on track, his "evil plot" is so bad, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But, the worst is the "couldn't you have told me that two movies ago" moment from his butler. It's such an inane way to turn the plot, I coudln't believe this was the same filmmakers behind "Spider-Man 2."

Oh, and enough with the damn upside down kiss, already. It was neat in the first film, but it doesn't warrant continual throwbacks in every Spider-Man movie from here until the end of time.

Taken on its own, the movie might not be that bad. But, since relativity is everything, and part 2 was so strong, I hated this film. A deep, Roger Ebert hated, hated, hated this film. It's so bad, and I wanted to like it so much, it almost makes me want to cry.

Almost.

**HTF Ads**

Simon Massey · 05-04-2007, 02:45 PM

Chad's review pretty much sums up what I felt about the film. Incredibly bad storytelling, and after Spiderman 2 this just makes it worse.

Scenes just seemed thrown in for the sake of it. Both Stan Lee's cameo and the editor's scene at the end buying a camera feel like they are from the deleted scenes section of a DVD.

Why did the butler not tell Harry about his father 2 films ago ?
Why prompts the Sandman just to give up ? Better yet why does he bother trying to fight Spiderman at the end in the first place - wasn't he supposed to be getting some money to his daughter ?
Who on earth thought giving Harry amnesia was a good idea ?

And the news reporting scenes at the end were awful. The actress who played the female reporter was dire.

At least the cast tried their best with what they had - it seems to me that Maguire's instinct for getting out of the franchise now is dead on. It's a shame as I think he fits the part very well but if this is the kind of film that we are expecting for 4, he would do well to go with his gut feeling.

I thought some of the action sequences were well done but couldn't compare to those in the second as I cared very little about what was happening. Most of the emotional investment I had in the characters was from the second film and slowly decreased as the film dragged on. At the end of 2 I was quite interesting in where they would go with Harry's character. By the end of 3 I didn't really care about what happened to him.

Looks like the Spiderman franchise is echoing the Batman franchise to me. Flawed but reasonable first installment, much improved second, followed by overblown third. Doesnt look good for Spiderman 4.

1/2 out of

TonyD · 05-04-2007, 05:30 PM

well just got back from imax in King of Prussia.

i'm still taking in the film.
not sure what i tink about it yet.

i do lnow it could have been great, if for a few cuts.
mostly the dark Parker jazz dance scene needed to be removed and destroyed.
hopefully when a re-editted cut comes out on Blu-Ray in couple years this will be removed.

more later.

Blu · 05-04-2007, 07:04 PM

I kept wondering what in the world was going on with three musical numbers in this movie.

My movie companions were wondering the same thing, was this actually a Spiderman movie?

Flawed was an understatement for this installment.

Some of the fight scenes were disorientating like the Star Wars Episode 3 scenes were. Too fast to keep up with the action and process it. When you can't process what is going on on the screen then it is difficult to be emotionally involved in the struggle.

I liked the creation of the Sandman scenes and thought they had a heartbreaking beauty to them. The main attraction for me though was the Venom storyline and to me it just fell flat and felt uninspired.

This movie was far weaker than The Hulk to me.