“3 villains shouldn’t be too much”, they said. “Everyone is gonna love what we do with the characters here” *Sony* said!!! (I’m not bitter- you’re bitter)
Hey Everyone! We’re on the third stop of this Spidey parade with the final film in the Tobey Maguire/Sam Raimi series with Spider-Man 3. And per usual, no plot summary although even if I did try to give one here, it probably wouldn’t help much: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0413300/
Well, in case it wasn’t obvious enough by me stating it a billion times in the last two reviews (and that’s probably an understatement… and if you couldn’t pick up on the fact that I was being sarcastic and over-exagerative then congratulations you just figured out that the English language is incredibly stupid sometimes ;)), but Sam Raimi’s first two Spider-Man’s were movies that I cherished to death and to this day, I still do. They had a massive part in making me who I am today and I always loved watching them. And as a kid, I even had that same sentiment for Spider-Man 3 because I still had that “I’m a kid and I love everything mindset”.
Although unlike the other two, I haven’t gone back to Spider-Man 3 since then so now with my more-educated cinephile brain as a young-adult (AKA me staring at the screen and yelling “WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!” for 15 hours straight), I was definitely curious to see what I would think of it now. (And I also put myself up to this whole Spider-Man review marathon, which is basically like signing a contract that has a clause stating that you’re ok with any injuries that you go through… yay) Did it hold up? HELL, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Spider-Man 3 is a complete and utter disappointment and failure to what the first two films were building toward and oh yeah, it’s a terrible movie period.
Now I don’t know how you like watching movies, but I usually like to watch a movie from beginning to end with as few breaks in-between to really experience it how it was meant to be viewed by the filmmakers (of course, that is just me and everyone is entitled to watch movies in whichever way they want). Yet here, I legitimately had to take several breaks during the film to make the experience feel more *”ToLErAbLe!!”* and I don’t about you- that’s pretty telling of this film’s terrible quality as a whole. What’s almost more unforgivable is how they ACTUALLY made me dislike Peter Parker BEFORE he was supposed to become dislikable with the symbiote suit.
Oh yeah, the kid goggles are way off. When you done did my favorite character of all-time as bad as that, you makes me feel pretty pissed off. (Alright, calm down. We don’t wanna be an “Emo Friendly Neighborhood Film Nerd” now do we? Just breathe, and listen to this guided meditation from J. Jonah Jameson… “PARKER!!!”). Now, where was I before that little muddled side-tangent?
Wait a minute, that reminds of how much Spider-Man 3 is muddled right from the start (I love transitions sometimes!). It already begins with a lackluster collection of set-up and it only gets worse the further it goes along–where the plot just gets trapped into a sense of being overly-busy (this movie’s only 2 hours and 20 minutes but it may as well be tripled that), convoluted (did I mention that there way too many villains yet? because THERE ARE!), slap-dash (“short-term memory loss is a beautiful thing to include” said no one), completely nonsensical (and this is coming from the guy who grins whenever he hears “It’s you who’s out Gobby, out of your mind!”), and so many other naughty words that would ban this article from any safe-search if I decided to include them here ;).
And it isn’t just the plot on the surface that seems sloppy since well, the entire movie just feels like the definition of “lost” in direction. While the other two feel movies feel like complete, simplistic, and compelling pieces of cinema, both Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire are so (*looks up synonym for lost*) astray with what to do here. For Maguire, he pulls out all of the leftover sap from previously for the first half and goes overboard campy for the second (I mean, need I mention EMO PETER! )… well, at least this movie introduced me to the symbiote story line, which is great and made me wanna go back and look at other interpretations of the black suit and non-Topher Grace Venom (so, that’s a plus???).
With Raimi–who I think we all know was unfortunately put under the grasp of some studio meddling (everyone’s favorite, am I right?)–he clearly was so overwhelmed by how much there was to this movie that he felt like he had no other choice to but to go all into the most bizarre and creatively bold directions to make it all work. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t.
Honestly, the worst part about Spider-Man 3 as the last movie in Raimi’s trilogy is that there are some true glimmers of Keanu… er, I meant light in this murky tunnel. There was still a lot of effort put into this and some of it rises above (If anyone actually got that reference to the Spider-Man broadway show, then you are probably crying in the corner just as much as me right now… I iz depress now:(). The performances from JK Simmons (as always), Bruce Campbell (in his best cameo of the trilogy somehow), Rosemary Harris, and Kirsten Dunst (who probably gave her best turn as Mary Jane in the trilogy by some miracle) are definitely strong. Christopher Young does a good job in following Danny Elfman’s massive footsteps while actually adding a unique flare that is all his own. The birth of the Sandman scene is actually quite beautiful (despite his character feeling the most of place in this movie- which is saying a lot) and the ending actually works.
Yeah, there’s still a lot of good moments and ideas here that make me wish each of the tree villains were all given their own separate stories. If that had happened, then we would have had another three great Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies on our hands. But that’s not what happened with Spider-Man 3 and the end result is kinda’ like Peter’s journey in the movie- confused from the start; gets pretty damn bad in the middle; and tries to come back towards the end with poor results.
Rating: 3/10 and I hated most of it- really didn’t like it as a whole.
Well, there you have it. I think I should be over the worst of this little Spider-Man review marathon- so I’m gonna breathe a sigh of relief while the rest of you all enjoy the ride… I hope. Anyway, thank you so much for reading this review and if you’ve been keeping up with the marathon so far, then thank you for that as well. If not, then well, I hope you’d go back to read some reviews on some *good* Spider-Man movies for a change. I imagine I should be able to have more free-time now, so hopefully I’ll be able to put an increase on the pace of this ride (with some additional surprises in the mix as well ;)). If you enjoyed this review and if you also have some *cough* passionate *cough* thoughts on Spider-Man 3, then please feel free to let me know in the comments below. And as always, I think you should all who know who I am…
I’m Alex, Your Friendly Neighborhood Film Nerd!!! (WOOO HOOOOOO!!!).
Spinning the Cineweb 