betrayed

Rating: 4/10 (7 May 2007)

Spiderman 3 is perhaps one the most disappointing films I've seen recently. Probably from high expectations, both considering the director, previous Spidermans, and the potential for greatness.
I sat for a good 15 minutes in the theater with my buddy and vented so this is gonna be difficult to structure, but I'll try.
Story: It's a convoluted junk heap that jams so much in you wonder if it ever saw the inside of an editing studio. The film completely loses it's arc, and the simplistic and proved three act narrative of a film which is all you need, transmogrifies into a stop-start cluster of story lines, false endings, and miss-edited cutaways to other characters, it's hard to keep from booing the screen. And everything is so unilaterally surmised with bull Aunt May sayings, Mary Jane whining, and Peter Parker overdub voice-overs, it feels like they made this movie as an after-school special. And they certainly didn't make it for the fans. Or for smart people.
The menage-a-junk of bad guys deprives any of having a decent representative back story or complexity. Sandman is a joke of inexplicable origins and non posed questions. Hayden Church does nothing but growl like Stay Puff the Marshmallow Man. His motive is classic-good guy-turned bad guy in that he just needs money for his crippled child. Yawn. And again, Sandman growls and bellows like some kind of Godzilla contemporary. He's a real man, why would he growl? The detailed explanation of Dr. Octopus's get-up and Green Goblin's hormone therapy or whatever are almost buy-able. But now Sandman can fly through the air? Really? Ummm, OK....
And Venom. Sigh...... What makes Spiderman so special? He's not the strongest or fastest or smartest. Actually, he's pretty smart, but whatever. Yet he has something no other character has - his Spidey Sense. The ability to know danger a few moments before hand. Remember the high school part from Spidey 1, which portrayed this beautifully? Yeah - the spider sense. Well, what makes Venom so freaking dangerous and so idiosyncratic is that Spidey can't detect him. Ever. It's the crux of all their battles. And Raimi took that concept, put it in a wastebasket, and kicked that sucker out the window. Venom, in all his richness, is Squandered in this movie. The Whole movie should have been about the symbiotic, the change Parker goes through, and his choices henceforth. Instead, it's an aside. Often paling in screen time to Green Goblin rehashing, Sandman, and relationship with women.
And how many Spidey movies do we need Kirsten Dunst tied up and in distress? Every single one apparently.
Acting: This thing degenerates into a Spanish soap opera and I guess they received direction that if you don't cry on screen, then therefore you are incapable of showing emotion. Count the tears, they add up quickly.
You can pretty much disregard James Cromwell in this. You paid for an actor of his caliber and basically wasted him. Good job Sony. He's barely in it, has no decent scene to express his talents, so why not get a no-name or less cultivated actor? Stupid casting.
Alfred Molina's absence is palpable. Topher Grace does nothing to impress me. I always hate this guy in everything. I would never cast him. And as Eddie Brock-Venom, the role of a lifetime, he threw it away.
Annnnnnnd of course, Bruce Campbell's cameo was good. Probably two days of work for him and he easily has the best scene.
Bryce Dallas Howard is quite fetching. Her eyes just knock me over. Bleh. Not a good role for her to take, other than the paycheck.
Not a big deal, but the extras were horrible. Often looking different places where Spiderman should be. Sometimes disinterested, sometimes corny beyond belief.
Special effects guy John Dykstra, who won the Academy Award for visual effects for his work on Spider-Man 2, declined to work on the third film as visual effects supervisor. And Danny Elfman backed out too. Both are missed. The fight scenes are choreographed adequately but they look cartoon-like and the bodies aren't given enough "weight". They look flimsy, almost like magazine paper sometimes.
Directing: Again, I've said this earlier, but the whole thing seems rushed, not thought out, choppy and chunky. There's no finesse. It's a mangled junk heap. And remember the "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" montage from Spidey 2? There's something similar here in 3, but it's a grotesque severance from the narrative and appears solely to get some "stupid people in the audience laughing". There's even a dance sequence at a jazz club that basically looks like they cut and pasted from The Mask with Jim Carey.
Just a let down on every single level. Kinda like your favorite child getting busted by his school for bullying the fat kid. You're more disappointed than anything else. "With great promise, comes great disappointment." For the 8 plus dollars, I feel like demanding a refund. It's like I got punched in the gut by my girlfriend, who then got into the car of my best friend; it hurts on a lot of levels.