Spider-Man 3 Review

I love Spider-Man movies. I was incredibly pumped for the 1st one and it did not disappoint, the 2nd one was even better. When I heard the third one was coming out and tackling the best storyline Spider-Man has to offer, the symboite, I was incredibly pumped. What I was subject to was a mockery of the Spider-Man name. My review is split into two parts, my actual review that does not contain spoilers and my analysis that should only be read after you have seen the movie. So here I go:

Review

Spider-Man 3 suffers from trying to cram to much story into one movie. The movie contains three villains and not nearly enough time to give them enough back story and character development to make you care about them. That was not the case in the first two, when they only had one villain and did a great job with them. There is so much in this one that the stories are sloppy. Take into account the Sandman, played by Thomas Haden Church (Lowell from Wings! How far he has come!). He apparently turned to a life of crime to help save his daughter from an illness. The movie, however, never says what her illness is and NEVER resolves the situation! We start with Spider-Man being adored by the citizens of New York, the fame is quasi going to his head and starting to annoy Mary Jane, who's acting career is struggling. Peter has to avoid an attack by Harry Osborn, who has redesigned the old Goblin stuff from his dad. After that Peter/Spider-Man fights the Sandman, an escaped convict who's body is made of sand. The special effects in the Sandman battles are nothing short of breathtaking. Peter later finds out that the Sandman actually killed his uncle, in his pre-sandman days, which drives Peter to seek revenge. An alien substance from outer space takes this time to bond with Peter, turning him into a more power full and evil Spider-Man with a fresh looking black suit. The suit feeds on aggression and causes Peter to do evil things. Once Peter turns evil the movie gets so cheesy it is impossible to take seriously. The rest of the movie deals with Peter trying to rid himself of the suit while dealing with the Sandman, Harry Osborne and a new villain that comes in at the end; Venom. Compared to the first two, this Spider-Man is awful. The biggest disappointment I have ever felt after a movie.
Grade: C-

Analysis

Put on your seat belt, I am a huge Spider-Man fan boy and feel the need to break down how bad this Spider-Man movie was from both a movie stand point and a true to the comics stand point. The symbiote storyline is Spider-Man's best storyline. It is an alien substance that bonds with him, enhances his powers and makes him evil (so evil he basically starts to hop the line between hero and villain, and lets his rage control him at all times). The symbiote can morph itself into whatever clothes Peter wishes it, so he never really has to dress himself again. In the movie, however, it's just a suit like his normal Spider-Man suit. That's bullshit! Not nearly as cool. The suit only affected how he acted when he had it on, where as in the comics he always had it on. As for Peter becoming "evil", it was pathetic. I'm sure Sam Rami was trying to be funny, but he went way to far. Instead of evil, Peter becomes a somewhat mix of 70s John Travolta and an Emo punk. Its laughable, the whole theater was laughing and not for good reasons. He starts walking down the street, pointing to women, doing gay disco dance moves and saying weird saying like "give me some shade, long legs" (to a woman). When he ditches the suit and it bonds with Eddie Brock and creating Venom, well the movie sucked at that too. The look and effects were awesome, but the character sucked. When Venom talks he refers to himself as "we", referring to Eddie Brock and the symbiote. Not in the movie, it did not help that Eric Foreman played Spider-Man's greatest enemy. At the end of the movie Venom gets Sandman's help to take down Spider-Man which is bogus. Venom is a loner and he wants to kill Spider-Man by himself. He actually would defeat people attacking Spider-Man because he did not want anyone to steal his glory. Plus he does not need any help, he is physically superior in every way to Spider-Man (his only weakness being sound). The movie also did not make it clear that the symbiote actually made Spider-Man more powerful while he was wearing it. The Spider-Man movies have sort of varied from the comics in the past, which was fine. But they never varied this much and made such a mockery out of the character. Rami, Maguire and Dunst did their job for the first two movies but it might be time for them to step aside.

The ending was horrible, with the Sandman and Spider-Man "forgiving" each other then the Sandman drifts off into the sunset. Never mind that they never resolved the Sandman's daughter is ill storyline. The symbiote storyline is Spider-Man's best. It makes Spider-Man more powerful, gives him a cool black suit, makes him evil, shows him overcoming the evil inside of him and gives birth to his coolest villain. It is supposed to be darker then all other Spider-Man stories. If a Saturday morning cartoon can do a better job of portraying this then a movie without the limitations of catering to a young audience, then that is just sad. I want to forget this movie ever happened.