Third Time's Not the Charm

Rating: 7/10 (6 May 2007)

After the greatness that was Spiderman 2, I was really looking forward to S3 but was sadly disappointed. I know, I know; it's a comic book movie not some deep For Your Oscar Consideration fare. But actually, that's the one of the main problems. I mean, I'm all for character development but let's face it; you don't go into a Spiderman movie to focus on the emotional struggle of the protagonist's inner demons. At 139 minutes, this was definitely WAY longer than it needed to be. Sam Raimi tried to cover too much material and ended up making the movie bloated where it didn't need to be at the sacrifice of the real attractions (i.e. the action scenes). Peter Parker has a repressed dark side, yeah we get it. Can we get a move on? Venom was one of the key attractions of this movie and he ended up being on screen for all of 10 minutes. And what's the deal with Sandman? One moment he wants to kill Spiderman and then minutes later he's standing there apologizing and acting all "oh, I'm not a bad guy, I just do bad things because I have to." If he wanted to make Sandman a complex character, Raimi should have focused more on him instead of wasting all that time on Peter Parker going Dark. And it's not just Sandman; lots of other issues magically resolved themselves without any good reason. Harry suddenly forgives Peter (just based on the speech by the butler?) and MJ sudden forgets all her problems at the end and goes back with Peter. Why spend all that time throughout the movie setting up these issues between Peter and MJ only to dismiss them at the end? Again, instead of wasting the time on the drama, I'd rather have seen more action.
Plus, what was the deal with that Jazz Club scene? Raimi must be a big Jim Carrey fan because that entire thing was just a cheap imitation of "The Mask." And the silly hand waving gag in the French restaurant? Really out of sync with the feel of the movie.
Oh, and one minor niggle. At the beginning of the movie, we learn that NY loves Spiderman and Peter Parker is doing well all around (happy with MJ, doing great at school). So what changed between S2 and S3? In S2, being Spiderman prevented Peter from doing his normal life routine so much that he had to quit the superhero business. But somehow between S2 and S3 he finds some magical solution that lets him go to school, date MJ and still fight crime? Some explanation would have been nice.
Look, as entertainment I guess it's an acceptable entry but trust me, if you're a fan of the series and you want to keep a good memory, just leave it with Spiderman 2 and pretend this one never happened.
7/10 (actually more like 6/10 but I gave the extra point out of respect for the entire Trilogy)