Spider-meh
Finally got around to seeing Spider-man 3, yesterday. In short, I was not impressed. This saddens me, as I was a huge fan of the first two movies. Like, I'm not wearing Spider-man boxers right now, but if someone were to give me a pair as a gift, I would not only put them on, but I'd parade around in them happily; I'm that much of a fan of Spider-man One and Two.But this third one... hm, no. There weren't any Ewoks or anything, but still. It was pretty bad.
Further reflections:
NOTE: Here there be spoilers; proceed with caution.
- The one thing I'll say for the movie was that the acting was uniformly excellent. Well, mostly. Bryce Dallas Howard, whom I've seen do good work before, appeared to be imitating a High School cheerleader who just got the lead role in the big Fall production of Anything Goes. Otherwise, everyone else was top notch. Toby Maguire, especially, deserves mention for remaining perfectly cast as Peter Parker and Spider-man.
- The real star, for me, anyway, was Topher Grace. He wasn't given just a ton to do, but he really took the ball and ran with what he had. As it turns out, Nice-Guy Topher Grace is just fine, but Evil, Fucked-Up Teeth Topher Grace is sooooo much more cool. Topher, call me!!! Furthermore, all of the stuff with Venom was pretty neat and they'd have been much smarter to make the movie just about him and Spider-man dukin' it out. The whole Sandman character, though well-acted by Thomas Haden Church, was absolutely useless.
- Seriously, I've attended Catholic funerals that were better paced than Spider-man 3. The movie took for-fucking-ever to get going, and when it did, when some momentum had been built up, Aunt May would appear for a conversation with Peter about how her husband used to look good in a bathing suit. All of Aunt May's scenes, as well as all the angtsy scenes with Peter and MJ, had the same effect on the movie as shoving a branch into the spokes of a moving bicycle. And, yes, I know that Spider-man is by nature a very angsty story. Whatever. They've handled it better before.
- Bad, Black-Suited Peter Parker has a dance number. Oooookay. I can only assume this was put in the movie because Sam Raimi lost a bet.
- Awwww, look, Peter and Harry made up and they're all friends n' stuff and now they're fightin' side-by-side and it's all awesome. Except that nobody cares about the New Goblin. Or Harry. Or that entire plotline, in general. We want to see SPIDER-MAN fighting villains with his web-slinging powers of awesomeness. That's it.
- There were more leaps in logic, contrived coincidences, and plot holes in Spider-man 3 than there were in the entire second season of LOST. And that's saying something. LOST can get away with it though, because it's super-cool. Spider-man 3... not so much.
- In general, the whole movie was a mess. Not a hot mess, like Batman Forever, which was just apeshit-crazy and was therefore entertaining to watch. No, this was just a plain ol' mess, like The Fantastic Four movie from a couple of years ago. No scene really seemed to connect to the one before or after it, it was sluggish and dull, and even the action scenes lacked the electric intensity of the series's previous installments. Again, the cast mostly did excellent work, but unfortunantely that can't fix everything. Spider-man 3, and it breaks my heart to say this, just doesn't work. They should have quit while they were ahead.
posted by Clinton at 8:29 AM
5 Comments:
Going to see Arachno-Gent 3 was like going to an amusement park: it cost too much, there was a lot of waiting around, and I was only really thrilled for about five minutes. But man, those five minutes!
If the movie proved anything it's that we as a nation must take action and demand affordable hoverboards.
I've been waiting for my hoverboard since Back to the Future II.
I absolutely agree with you on the uselessness of the entire Sandman side plot. It would have made a considerably tighter and better paced movie without all that in there. But maybe Aunt May had something in her contract where she was scheduled to appear, lol. Also, the whole post-fight ending sequence seemed REALLY oddly paced to me. It all just rang odd and weird to me, I didn't get it. :(
And hubby tells me that of course the studios are already talking about making three (!) more, with an all new cast and director (since TM, KD and SR are all done with it). He suggested that Jake Gyllenhaal would make a good Peter Parker, what do you think?
During the entire movie, I couldn't help but thinking that Mary Jane was just a whiny bitch to Peter for no good reason.
Comparing a downward career on Broadway (which is a pretty fleeting and very fluctuating career path to begin with) to a man saving the lives and personal property of the entire city of New York City from average robber-types with the domino masks to super-powered sand castles with a heart of gold is completely unwarranted.
She knew going into their relationship that Peter has a big sense of responsibility to NYC and JUSTICE (I'm assuming that Peter always thinks the word in caps just like that). So you got cut from a play? Peter just stopped three guys from raping a woman (wasn't in the movie but I'm assuming at one point in his career he did such a feat).
Do you, Mary Jane, really have the gall to then complain that Peter doesn't care about you?
Braden... Oh, our nation's got hoverboards. It's just that they're in a secret lab out in the Nevada desert. The government doesn't want us to know about them because they know we'll use them in conjunction with our rock n' roll to overthrow their seats of power. Anyway, that's what the guy on the subway told me, right before he asked me for spare change.
Giggleloop... I think Jake Gyllenhaal would make a fine Spider-man (and I think he was even their first choice of replacement when Maguire wasn't sure he was coming back for part 2), however, I think he's probably too famous now, and therefore too expensive, to get cast. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd bet they go for someone a bit more unknown to fill the suit.
Chris... WORD! I hadn't even really thought about that but you're so right.
That's it. I had heard mixed reviews, so I am just going to wait for it to be on On Demand, or DVD, so I can fast forward through the slow bits.
Thanks all!
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