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| Spiderman 3 | |
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| Topic Started: May 17 2007, 10:27 PM (194 Views) | |
| Koenshocku | May 17 2007, 10:27 PM Post #1 |
Old Skooler
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This review comes a little bit late, but its coming nonetheless. This is one of those divisive films. If you are a Spidey fan, its almost a 50-50 chance if this is a show for you. You'll either be in the "Its an action-packed Spidey film... of course I loved it!" crowd or the "WTF were they thinking?! They gave a great big Fuck You to Sandman and Venom fans!" crowd. While the non-fan or casual fans tend to have a higher enjoyment factor in my estimation after personally polling some folks on the subject. You may want to keep this in mind after reading the review, as you may just be a member of the 2/3 that I am not on this one. The largest issue here for me is that they simply tried to shoe-horn in way to much crap for a two-and-a-half hour show. This was essentially two shows for the price of one, except that both of them were half-assed in the presentation. Obviously from the ending of Spiderman 2, you have to realize they are going to be resolving the Harry Osborn arc that began in the first and resonated through the second. That is a given. They are also going to be dealing with the increasingly intricate relationship between Peter/Mary Jane. They would also be introducing at least one villain, deal with his origin, their motivations, their personal demons, their sacrifices and no doubt a resolution to the issue. That right there is a movie. Years ago, Sam Raimi was asked if he would be including Venom in one of his films. He said that he didn't much like the character and didn't get why he was so popular. Raimi thought Venom was more or less style over substance for the most part other than being a simplistic way to explore why a character is who he is. The point is that he didn't like nor get the character. I wrote about this on this forum or one of its iterations years ago when Sam first made those statements. Since then, Avi Arad, the producer from Marvel and Sony execs decided that the addition of Venom, a popular character, would increase their ticket sales. Thus the bottom line... and so began the steady trickle of production notes from the executives and accountants... finally after word that Sam was only going to have the symbiote in Spiderman 3 and not Venom quite yet, fans started sending emails to Avi and his cohorts complaining about how they wanted to see Venom... then Avi Arad just out and said it to Sam that he wanted Venom in the film because that's what the fans wanted... and so the film changed to awkwardly include Venom... who didn't seem to fit in this film and frankly should have had his own film. If I had known that a bunch of dumbass fans who didn't know the first thing about narrative presentation on the screen would have so much sway with Avi and Sam, I would have started my own letter writing campaign to make the movie not suck so hard in respect of Venom. But in the end, I can't blame the fans because there are a lot of numbskulls out there. I choose not to blame Sam Raimi because he has to get funding from somewhere, so the producers have the reigns. I'm looking your way Avi and company... To be fair, a secondary main villain was planned prior to Venom's inclosure. In the most prominant draft it was The Vulture. The Vulture and Sandman would have escaped prison together only to begin their crime spree and basically the events of the movie... except with more relevant character development. Another draft after the studio notes, to my understanding, included the black symbiote Venom suit that Spidey would receive, but Venom wouldn't be showing up until Spidey 4. But that changed as well. The inclosure of Venom, who was basically ruined in this film by an obvious lack of understanding of the character, was the primary reason that I felt this film was not as good as its predecessors. Venom had nothing to do with Sandman, except for an awkward and forced sequence near the end of the film, while Vulture would be intimately involved with the Sandman because they would be partners throughout! But I am dabbling in what could have been and that is not entirely fair. The point is that they were trying to develop two characters that in no way had anything to do with one another. Thus, Sandman, the anchor for the film (not to mention emotional anchor) got shafted. His story was not even close to being fleshed out... to the point of literally forgetting he was in the movie for close to 30 minutes or more of screen time! Is that reasonable for the main villain of the film to barely even be in the film?! Imagine if in Spidey 2, Doc Ock would have been gone for most of the film. Who would have been the villain?! Your guess is as good as mine. Spiderman 3 was very disorganized, it performed disservices to several characters and it frequently ignored great opportunities to expand the existing movie-spiderman universe. Having said that, I did not hate the film despite my obvious negatively slanted rant. There was some good stuff in the film. If you are looking for action, there's very little lull-time and many action sequences of varying types. If you are looking for drama, there is some of that too, though the pacing kind of throws the rollercoaster off-kilter and it never comes close to these sort of scenes from the first two. It has some funny scenes too. Bruce Campbell had his best scene of the trilogy in this one. Sandman was by far my favorite character in the film. Thomas Hayden Church typically does not impress me, but he managed to fit this role perfectly in my opinion. The Sandman's back story wasn't faithful to the comics, but I find that to be a plus. In the comics, he was a one-note goon-type character, but in the film he is given motivation and very much becomes a sympathetic character. Perhaps the reason I love the way they handled the character is because of the incidental handling of Mr. Freeze in Batman:The Animated Series. In the comics, he was a goon with superpowers, but in B:TAS, he was given a horrendous set of circumstances, his wife was taken from him, his life was ruined, his cellular structure was altered and thus he was never able to feel the warmth of a summer's day nor feel the gentle embrace of another. He had a reason to do what he did and it was something that the hero of the story could sympathize with and hated to bring him down. That episode from the first season of B:TAS was my favorite of the series and something about their take on Sandman was reminiscent of that. Also, the effects on Sandman were top-notch and some of the action sequences with him were pretty fun! But good effects does not equal a good story/movie. Overall, I didn't hate it, didn't love it and because of the studios' mishandling of the property, I can't help but rate it lower than both of its predecessors. Spidey fan Koen calls it a mediocre: 6 / 10 Agree? Disagree? |
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| Miss.E.Mist | May 25 2007, 10:12 AM Post #2 |
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Xtreme Member
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Well, for the most part I agree with what you said... I thought Venom was in it too little to really have any impact, and not being totally clued-up about who venom actually is, the film really doesn't help tell ya. Plus Sandmans story was a bit lacking in explaination too, unlike the previous villaians in 1 and 2. To be honest I think the reason the film fell so short was that it tried to fit too much into one movie. A new villain, a dark spidey which then gives us another new villain, Harry's vengeance (technically a third villain for part of the film). Peter's relationships...with his aunt, MJ, Harry... It was pretty much "If you take a second to look down at your popcorn you'll miss something". The developement of the story seemed to be too fast paced aswell, no time for something to sink in, or to imply gradual changes in relationships/mindset of the characters. Like the relationship between Peter and MJ...it seemed to start good, go bad quick and then get uber-bad within minutes. And it was fucking long too! I missed the last two minutes cuz after an almost 45 minute action sequence towards the end I needed to pee so fucking badly!  Serves me right for getting a big coke...  However, despite all that I still loved the movie!! Yeah, it was busy, erratic and crammed...but brillaint anyway I thought. I've always thought that Tobey Maguire makes a perfect spidey, and that belief did not change with this movie. The scenes with Peter and M-J were great, as always, and very "believable", the action sequences were amazing and innovative...although not as dramatic/moving as some from the previous two movies (eg spidey stopping the train in S2...love that.) The dark-spidey/bad-boy peter scenes were very entertaining, if a little camp in places, but thats what I like about spidey...a good mix of action, fun, humour and drama. The couple of scenes at the newspaper were fucking brilliant, and I look forward to those every movie! Just wish there had been a few more in this one is all. Now this is where you might not want to read if you've yet to see this movie... *SPOILER* One thing that really got a reaction from myself and the girls I saw it with was bad-Peter taking that blond to the restaurant where MJ works. The whole scene was very OTT, very camp and mostly laughable...and then BAM! It all goes nuts and Peter hits MJ. Peter HITS MARY-JANE!!! That was a jolt for sure. And much time was spent on the walk home mimicking the "Hey, check me out" walk Peter does in his sharp suit... *END SPOILER* So yeah, can't really type much more as I'm getting fed-up of this keyboard now. But yeah, agree on the negative points of the movie...I think it could have easily been S3 and S4. Story was a little to "busy" and rushed, but all the elements I love about the spidey-movies were still present, and the story was still good enough to please me. Generally I think the Spidey series are by far the best of the comic-book action movies I've seen...the only ones that could rival it (for me anyways) would be the new Batman movies, if the Nolan/Bale duo get round to making more...until then it's Spidey 1-2-3 first, X-men 1-2-3 second and batman Begins third... Mist says - 8/10 - just wish we'd had more itme to get to know those villains and catch up with the main characters lives. |
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5:38 AM Nov 21