It stinks It stinks It stinks

Rating: 1/10 (19 May 2007)

We've come to it at last, the long waited third installment in the multi-multi million dollar franchise is finally here. Spidey 3 has all ready shattered the record for best opening weekend with it's 148 million dollar domestic take in. Did Sony deserve that money? No if anything Sony has committed the greatest heist of all time. Spidey 3 is a complete waste of time and money. All the fun the first two movies offered is completely forgotten when you walk out of 3. Spider-Man 3 reeks of poor storytelling, acting, and directing, and it has big name talent in each of these three departments. Sam Raimi is one of the most innovative directors in the business but Spidey 3 lacks his creative touch. It seems more like Columbia Tristar's film than Sam Raimi's film. Raimi had stated that he has all ways hated the beloved Spider-Man character Venom in countless interviews due to his "lack of humanity". Columbia's paycheck must have been awfully convincing because Raimi stated that he reread the comics and developed a new love for Spider-Man's evil black suited counterpart.. Raimi creates a disgusting misinterpretation of the character by making the horrible mistake(Can I call it mistake? It just seems too mild.Sin against nature may be a more appropriate thing to call it) of casting That 70's Show regular Topher Grace as Spider-Man's arch nemesis. Did I watch the same That 70's Show episodes that he did? Because I haven't seen a Topher Grace performance which would make think he was even ready to play Venom's understudy. He was no where near ready to handle a major dramatic role like this and it more than shows in the final product. His Venom is less evil and threatening than his That 70's Show character Eric Foreman. As much as I hate to say it Arnold Schwarzenegger's infamous portrayal of Mr.Freeze in Batman & Robin is Oscar worthy in comparison. The pinnacle of this mistake is shown when we see Topher enact a classic scene from the comics in which Venom's article ego Eddie Brock lie in a church contemplating his shattered life, Grace's portrayal makes this well written scene from the comics laughable. Grace is not the only one to point the finger at though, the usually outstanding Tobey Maguire seems off key here. There are moments in the movie where he just seems out of place, I know he could have done much better than this based on his outstanding resume but then again maybe he just couldn't take this horrible script seriously. Thomas Haden Church is good as Flint Marko a.k.a Sandman but his character is so poorly written and has no character development. I get the feeling Church didn't feel quite right delivering cliché lines like "I'm a good man I've just done some bad things". James Franco is an extremely talented actor and you can tell he is frustrated with the Harry Osborne role in his performance, you get the feeling he is more than happy to be able to move on.You know it's sad that the best performance in the movie is a five minute cameo by Raimi's friend character actor Bruce Campbell as a stereotypical French waiter. Spider-Man 3's script is probably the worst of it's many flaws. There are too many loose ends in it, and the story is sloppily pulled together. This is shown with the way the movie handles it's handful of villains, instead of having Spider-Man battle them all at once, they become incapacitated for brief periods of time, (The cliché of amnesia is used for Harry Osborne a.k.a The Green Goblin). The weakest part of the script is how Spider-Man deals with his inner demons which are being pulled out by the symbiotic suit. In the comics Peter suffered a near mental breakdown in 3 he does a disco strut down New York's streets which would make John Travolta call his lawyer to sue for copy right infringement. Scenes like these made me wonder if Raimi actually read his source material before he began filming this movie. I wanted to like 3 I really did. I love the Spider-Man character, and Sam Raimi's movies but in the end I just couldn't even pretend to like the movie. 3 has no redeemable qualities other than knowing Spider-Man 4 can't be that disappointing(Or that Topher Grace won't be back).
* out of ****