“Spiderman 3” is the Super Villain packed installment of the Spiderman series. This movie reminded me of Chinese food; looks great, tastes great, sadly never makes you full and does bad things to the end result.
Director Sam Raimi did a great job of preserving the comic book feel of the movie. Many of the fight scenes, the looks on the bystander’s faces, and bad guy close ups screamed comic book to me. There is a scene where Sandman is going through a transformation that struck me as perfectly comic-ish. Raimi did a good job of keeping the lighting bright but not making it feel sterile.
The special effects were exceptional. Honestly, there isn’t much more to say on the subject.
There are a series of scenes in the movie where Peter Parker lets his hair down and becomes a different man. He looked like Willard (From “Willard”) or Le Chiffre (“Casino Royale”) and has the personality of a used car salesman. Even with the dreadful beatnik look dawned by our hero friend, the transitional scenes are funny. They probably would upset true fans of Spiderman, but I found them a charming addition.
There is no wonder that Kirsten Dunst seems cold to the idea being Mary Jane Watson in another Spiderman movie. Her part could be done by taking the raw footage from movies one and two, and changing the green screen background. There is a terrible scene where she is being jostled in a car, where she is going one way and the car is going another. She is flopping herself about wildly. Still, Dunst’s acting (aside from her attempt at stunt work) is pretty solid. Her sadness, love, frustration and anger are not unclear. An actor is only as good as her script and Dunst’s is a lead weight around her ankle.
Topher Grace’s performance disgraces his last name. If I were in charge of the English dictionary, the entry for annoying would have the word spelled “T-O-P-H-E-R” and there would be a full color picture of him as Eddie Brock and Venom. Right next to the picture would be a caption reading “Professional photographers do not use plastic cameras and actually use the viewfinder.” Grace’s (should we even call him that anymore?) is so unrestrained, he seems like his arms should be waving about wildly at the shoulders when he talks.
Tobey Maguire’s is pretty fun as Spiderman. For some men, the crying might get a little bit much but I was impressed by how easily and naturally the tears flowed from Maguire. There is nothing special about Maguire’s performance as compared to the other movies. I speculate that it is less because of Maguire’s skills and more because of the quality of the script.
There is an endless supply of bad guys and drama in “Spiderman 3.” It seems that with every change of scenery there is an introduction of a new villain or melodrama. There are no less than three villains. The movie does not give them super villain names but my extensive research has uncovered their names as “Venom,” “Sandman,” and “New Goblin.” Also making a brief appearance is the un-credited Creepy, Black Asteroid Goo. That is just the bad guys. There is Peter and Mary Jane drama, Peter and Harry drama, Harry’s personal drama, Venom’s personal drama, Sandman’s personal drama, Mary Jane and Harry drama and Peter’s self drama. “Spiderman” three tries to pack too much plot into this comic book movie. Each of the bad guys would have been a fine movie unto themselves. For some reason, not apparent to anyone with sense, they thought one bad guy wasn’t enough. Would Spiderman really be any less bad-ass if he only fought one super villain at a time or any less human if he only had one or two dramatic incidents to deal with? Do people demand so much from the wildly popular “Spiderman” series that a super hero can’t just be super; he has to be super duper?
I want to know why no one puts two and two together. Mary Jane Watson keeps getting kidnapped by the bad guys and no one in the media or in the entire world is smart enough to put two and two together? For a great deal of this movie, Spiderman has his mask off, sitting in costume on a roof, overlooking the city. Does no one have a telephoto lens? Does no one see him when he webs up there? Are the people of New York in Stan Lee’s world really that stupid?
It takes a great deal of skill to create movie after movie about the same characters and make it feel like a new movie with familiar characters. Even though I found “Spiderman 3” reasonably entertaining, I left feeling unimpressed. I could hear the sizzle from the kitchen, I was hungry, but there was nothing in the pan.
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LaRae Meadows
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