Hey, This Isn't Springy, High-Flying Fun!

So, yeah ... Spider-Man 3.

I gotta say, I was pretty goddamn disappointed.

--Spoilers Follow--

The first one I thought was pretty good. It had its great moments, it had its crappy moments. They nailed the character of Peter Parker (excluding the part where he allowed the carjacker to fall to his death, which thankfully gets picked up in this film ... though not really to proper effect), but Kirsten Dunst was horribly miscast. Willem Dafoe was engaging, though over-the-top. Every single scene with the Green Goblin in costume was cringe-worthy. But fundamentally, Raimi, the cast and the crew all got it. They understood Spidey, and despite these sticky notes, it was still a fun movie.

Spider-Man 2, however, blew me away. Once again ignoring Dunst's miscasting and the fact that movie MJ is just NOT MJ, Spider-Man 2 managed to take all the good aspects of the first one and elaborate on them, while dumping all the cornier aspects of the first (excluding a few poorly conceived crowd reactions). It was funny, heartfelt, action-packed and genuinely moving. I still get chills whenever I watch the train scene, with Peter Parker unmasked in front of an awe-inspired crowd of commuters.

So with the bar being set so high, and with Raimi having proved himself twice now, I had big hopes for Spider-Man 3. I guess my first disappointment was when they released shots of the black costume. Rather than looking the way it did in the comics, it was simply - and unimaginatively - the normal costume coloured black. I could excuse this, though, as it seemed to make sense that it was being handled as the original costume with the alien symbiote having "stained" it.

The trailers had me completely psyched. The posters were awesome. I bought my tickets in advance and waited with anxious anticipation.

I can say it wasn't completely terrible. In fact, I wouldn't even say it was bad. It just ... wasn't that great.

The problem seems to be they over-extended themselves. With three villains to set up and pay off, an alien costume to deal with, relationship problems for MJ and Peter and the introduction of Gwen Stacy and her dad, it was obvious it was going to be hard for the filmmakers to pull off.

And it was. So much so that they didn't manage it.

Harry fronts up to exact his revenge, gets bopped on the head and has convenient amnesia for a good portion of the film. The black costume comes and goes, depending on whether the screenwriter remembered it was in there. Sandman? More like Blandman. I've read reviews of Thomas Haden Church's performance that call him 'reserved' and 'dignified'. What else could he play BUT reserved, given that they were trying to keep his morality ambiguous up until his final monologue with Spidey, but that just meant it was two hours of "Oh. Sandman. Kinda cool looking ... I guess. Remind me, why do I care about him again?". He was certainly no Alfred Molina as Dr Octopus (with one of the best movie lines for a villain ever, in my opinion; "I will not die a monster!", quickly followed by "The power of a sun in the palm of my hand.").

Peter acted like a dick even when he wasn't under the influence of the alien costume, which was necessary given the kind of story they were telling, but still. MJ whined quite a bit, but it was pretty much warranted. Of course, most of her problems seemed to revolve around her wanting to be in the spotlight with her boyfriend eternally cheering her on, and getting shitty with him when the reverse happens.

Of course;
PETER HITS MJ!!! And it's never even properly followed up on. It's not really something you can resolve in a Hollywood action blockbuster (which is why I wished they hadn't incorporated it in the first place) but it would have been nice for them to have had, I dunno, a conversation about it or something. The argument would be that Peter did it while under the influence of the black suit. But if you take that to its analogical position in reality, Peter did it while under the influence of drugs/alcohol. Not following up on that just seems really irresponsible to me, and given that the defining characteristic of Spider-Man is his sense of responsibility, it's especially jarring.

Oh, and Peter's black suit-inspired emo hair! After essentially killing Sandman, Peter comes running up out of the subway system into the street. Deciding he's badass now, he takes the time to look at his reflection and scruff up his hair, giving him a decidedly emo fringe. This becomes his "evil" look, along with a paler complexion and baggy pothead eyes. Why he felt he suddenly had to adjust his hair after he thought he’d committed murder, I’ll never know, but the second he did, the audience busted out laughing.

As if sensing this would happen, Raimi goes on to include a montage of ‘black suit Peter’ strutting around with his greasy emo hair, pointing at women in the street and giving them “sexy” looks, with each one of them reacting with disgust. Sure, it’s funny, but it’s not really the exploration of Peter’s darker side I was expecting (or that was promised). It just kinda served to undermine the whole thing. As did the second musical/dance performance (and that’s just Peter; MJ has two of her own as well!). God only knows why Raimi felt we’d all be so dense he had to illustrate Peter being morally ambiguous with gross hair and a sickly complexion. It just made him look like a petulant teenage punk and left the audience laughing at the movie rather than with it.

I won’t even talk about Venom. He shows up so late in the game and gets rushed off just as quickly. He’s barely even worth talking about. Ditto Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen and James Cromwell as her father, Captain Stacy.

But there were good points, too. The effects and action sequences were incredibly impressive. The humour was still quirky. The story still had some heart to it (though at no point did I get the same chills and pangs I got in 2). Bruce Campbell, JK Simmons and the whole Daily Bugle cast were fantastic. I liked the larger, more complex roles for Peter’s landlord Mr Ditkovitch and his daughter. And as clumsily as it was stuck in there, and as awkwardly performed as it was, I absolutely loved Stan Lee’s cameo.

In the end, I think the failing of Spider-Man 3 is it tried to do too much. It felt like it had to be bigger and louder than the previous instalments, and in trying to be so everything just spiralled out of control. Given how massively well the movie’s performed and that Sony has said it’s keen to have a part 5, 6 and 7, I can only hope Raimi and his cast – or whoever takes over, should they all want to move on – do what they did with part 2 in relation to part 1; learn from their mistakes, improve on what they got right, and make a Spider-Man movie to be truly proud of.

All that said, I’m still planning on seeing it again. What can I say? I’m a big Spidey geek, and my hope is on a second viewing I can appreciate the movie for what it is, rather than what I wanted it to be.

I really didn’t intend for this post to be as long as it’s turned out to be, but once I got started I couldn’t really stop. Given how Sarah’s said how boring movie reviews are in blogs, I hope she’ll let me off the hook for this one. It was good seeing it with her on opening night, actually. She could tell how bummed out I was by it and, knowing how (weirdly) important Spider-Man is to me, said it was okay for me to have still liked it if for no other reason than I wanted to.

Thanks, Daggy! Really made me feel better about the whole thing.

And that’s the end of that chapter.