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Monday, May 7, 2007
I saw Spider-Man 3 Friday night and it was good. My wife leaned over to me towards the end and said "This is my favorite of the 3" and that constant reader is a good sign. See, I'm never sure how my wife will respond to comic book movies, she's liked the Spider-Man series but I was worried she wouldn't like Venom. And before this I was worried she'd hate Batman Begins (especially the scary, demonic, scenes when people are on the Scarecrow's dust, but she loved it too) But she liked it and frankly I did too. There's been a lot of mediocre and bad reviews, which I frankly don't understand.
The movie revolves once again around Peter Parker,the kindly geek who gains super powers and becomes Spider-Man. His life is going great, everyone loves Spidey and their throwing parades in his honor. Things are great for him and Mary Jane and he's ready to ask for her hand in marriage. But as all of you Spider-Man fans know when things are going great, the ground will quickly fall out from underneath poor Peter.
MJ starts to pull away after her acting career takes a tumble and she feels Peter can't relate seeing as how Spidey's doing so well. A new photographer, Eddie Brock (That 70's Show's Topher Grace), is trying to steal his career at the Daily Bugle. And the police thing that the man actually responsible for his Uncle Ben's death is still at large, that would be Villain Numero Uno: Sandman (Wings' Thomas Haden Church),
whose recently had his whole body turned into sand (it's explained better in the movie). Plus if that wasn't bad enough, Peter's best friend Harry still hates him after finding out that he was "responsible" for his father's death (See the first movie in the series) and has taken to attacking him using his father's Goblin devices, making him Villain Numero Dos: The New Goblin.
All of this compounds on Peter and makes him angry, which is fine with the Alien Goo that has fallen to Earth in a meteorite and taken up residence inside Pete's apartment. The goo bounds with the now furious Peter and becomes a "black suit" which makes him more powerful and feeds on his anger and amplifies it.
Peter becomes a jerk, which Director Sam Raimi, plays up in a very humorous fashion, and is soon killing a bad guy, smashing bank robbers through windshields, and being an all around prick. And hurting those who get in the way, such as Eddie Brock who uses falsified photos to steal the staff photographers job from Peter. But, when in a manner or minutes he manages to hurt (either physically or emotionally) the two women in his life, MJ and the newly introduced Gwen Stacy (the stunning Bryce Dallas Howard), in a matter of minutes, he realizes what the suit has done to him and decides he has to get rid of it.
Unfortunately the suit has bonded with him (it's basically a parasite who needs a host to live) and proves difficult to get off. 
But once it does come off it quickly finds a new host, one that hates Peter as much as it does, Eddie Brock. Eddie's pissed because he's lost his job and all respectability and thinks Peter's stolen his girl Gwen as well. But with the suit he becomes Villain Numero Tres: Vemon, a demonic looking version of Spider-Man. All of this Cumulates in a final battle between the Villains and Our Hero, Spidey. A battle royale that is only ruined by the frequent cuts to some horrible reporter and repeated crowd shots, only one of which (featuring J. Jonah Jameson) is entertaining.
Overall the entire movie works well, but I do have a couple of minor complaints. First, I felt like we could have used more of Eddie Brock/Venom & Flint Marko/Sandman, they were featured nicely but I feel Raimi could have done more with this, if only he had made a movie that was about 30 min longer. (Personally I'd be fine with a 3 hour Spider-Man movie because I feel like if I'm paying $10 a movie, the longer the better and the more for my money!) Having said that, as the movie stand now it really needed both villains and the plot works well to make them both central to the story, I just would have liked to have more.
My second complaint is the main one I have with the movie: Not Enough Gwen Stacy! 
As any good Spider-Man fan knows Gwen was Peter's first and True Love in the comics. In fact the scene from the first movie where the Green Goblin tosses MJ off the bridge and Spider-Man catches her with his web, is right from the comics, only it's Gwen and when Spidey catches her the force of the sudden stop snaps her neck killing her. It's only after this tragic event that MJ comes into Pete's life. I'll be honest I was a little weary of Howard being cast as Gwen, but she looks amazing and did an amazing job with the character, she just needed more to do.
Highlight to read more of my opinion featuring a possible: Personally I'm still hoping they pull a roll reversal, killing MJ and moving Gwen in to be the new love interest. Plus she's much more attractive than MJ in the movies.
Other than that I enjoyed the movie, as did the others in my theater who cheered, hollered, clapped, and seemed to have a good time all around.
Bottom Line: Better than the First, not as good as the Second, but still better than most of the Super Hero Movies out there! Raimi once again proves why he is the best choice for this franchise. Here's Hoping For Part 4!
