Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (12 May 2007)

I've given myself a week to cool off and look at the movie with a cold eye for this review, so here goes...but first, an intro.
Spider-man is a hero-my hero. being the comic-book freak that i am, i was and sorta still am a huge spider-fan. not only do i love the character, the movies, the comics, and the cartoon, but he represents a relatable character who's helped me through some rough times. The first one reminded me why the character and mythology and filmmakers were great, and made Sam Raimi one of my favorite directors. the movie is a big part of the reason i decided to become a filmmaker. The second one showed the world the things the first one showed me, but it showed us why we go to the movies. for three years i awaited the third film as if i was a prisoner, waiting for my 20-year sentence to be over. The trailers in conjunction with the images and leaked footage that was coming out got my so pumped my veins were bursting. when i saw 300 for the third time, i also saw the venom trailer for the third time. my friends grabbed my hands in anticipation, and to this day i remember the guys telling my they could feel my pulse racing with excitement like drums to a metal song. thats when the bad reviews started to come out. Thats when i started to worry, and when i fear that this movie might not break the third-movie curse, and might be on par with the other bad superhero films. "what if a god can bleed?" i thought.
Thursday night, may third. I'm wearing my spider-man 3 shirt, spider-man 3 baseball cap, and my spider-man mask, surrounded by other fan-boys, excited but concerned as hell for the third movie to start. we watch some funny trailers, and the Columbia logo comes up. we all clap until it says "tobey Maguire." Anyhow, the flick starts and the opening narration was iffy. i sighed and ignored the annoying dialog, simply trying to focus on how excited i was that the wait was over. the movie goes on, and other than a few bits of iffy dialog, i gotta say i was liking what i saw and heard, especially the music. But things started to go downhill. i think it was when James Franco keeps grinning and yelling awkwardly in the hospital scene that people started to laugh and i started to be reminded of the unintentional comedy "The Wicker Man." Harry in general was exceedingly goofy, and it didn't feel better. the dialog was getting worse, and the movie kept getting jumpier. I don't remember specifically the movie started to go downhill, but by the time MJ and Peter were breaking up, the theater is cracking up, and i realized what i was watching was a complete freaking soap oprea-y joke.
So, in summary, here's what worked, and what didn't.
WHAT WORKED: The special effects were excellent, the look of venom. Topher grace did wonderfully with what little they gave him, as did Thomas Hayden church. he music is half the reason i ever intentionally think of the movie. The scenes where peter had the symbiote were wonderfully done; You could see Tobey Maguire was having fun, they were funny as hell, and occasionally scary as hell. The one moment i truly thought the movie was doing what it was supposed to do and the director was giving me what i wanted were when peter confronted harry an Eddie. When peter confronts and tells harry "no he didn't; you're father despised you." or when he said "youre trash, Brock." were freaking gold. i also though the very end of the movie worked really well. i also liked the cameos and the scenes with Jameson.
WHAT Didn't WORK: Well, the movie (in part because of the script and in part because of the acting) is chock-full of unintentionally hilarious scenes that are inevitably going to be huge inside jokes on ytmnd or pop culture at large. (i've already made a face book group called "Hows the pie") The pacing was awful and at times reminded me of X-men the last stand with how poorly the story and characters developed. The movie can get corny as hell, IE the mask-esquire dancing scene at the jazz club. judging by the scene where harry and peter fight, i can tell that maybe the filmmakers obviously didn't take it very seriously or the editors could tell it was going to be garbage so they made it extremely goofy. he villains are really poorly done, and the movie is so jumpy its not even fair.
ALL-IN-ALL: if you can get past the trauma of this wonderful franchise and character being squashed like.well..a bug, then its a great flick to watch with a bunch of friends on a Saturday night. I can see where Sam raimi was going and i know he didn't want to disappoint us because he's the biggest spider-fan out there, but the movie is a general disappointment