Spider-Man 3: My Review (Spoilers)

Rating: 10/10 (6 May 2007)

A solid and good film, but lacking the greatness of most memorable third installments. I recently saw Spider-Man 3, and I must admit it's a solid, interesting and entertaining film, but, like I said before, this film is unable to reach the greatness of third installments or chapters such as RETURN OF THE JEDI, REVENGE OF THE SITH, INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE and RETURN OF THE KING. The positive elements of the movie are the amazing action sequences and the interesting human dynamics, which were kept from the previous movie, this is the department where Spidey 3 really pays off. Unfortunately Spidey 3 is flawed in many ways, one of which was trying to fit too much into the film, which is a common flaw in many third installments (including memorable ones) but here this flaw becomes more evident and hurts the film even more: your attention keeps jumping from one issue to another very quickly, therefore being difficult to understand the storyline coherently, even if you are a Spider-Man die hard fan. All the previously mentioned things make the third chapter of the Spider-Man saga, uneven; its predecessors ,unlike this film, had a more stable and coherent storyline. Now lets talk about the story itself, here is where I find a major flaw: Uncle Ben's death. The death of Uncle Ben was a very important, canonical and pivotal event in the Spider-Man universe, it was Peter's negligence by failing to stop a criminal what caused Uncle Ben's death in the first place; the writers twisted the story by giving Uncle Ben's killer a different name and a different face, therefore tampering with the essence of the Spider-Man mythology; the powerful premise of "great power and great responsibility" is deeply hurt with this unwise twist. Second, the arrival of the symbiotic substance, wow, that was pretty lame for a summer blockbuster, the 90's cartoon featured the arrival of the alien suit in a more exciting and dynamic way, here, all we get to see is a falling meteor; the same way science fiction monsters fell from space to earth in B movies such as THE BLOB. Sadly and unfortunately, Spidey does not walk out of this one clean; honor and dignity are nowhere to be seen at the end of the film. It was interesting to notice many similarities to SUPERMAN III: a new girl, the hero becoming evil, a big catastrophe where the hero saves the day (Spidey's crane and Supes chemical plant), unexpected villains, comedy elements and bad taste (Superman getting drunk and Spider-Man hitting MJ). I don't think Spider-Man 3 is the worst of the trilogy, the original movie was a weak by the numbers summer blockbuster, the second one an entertaining and interesting wisely written story, slightly better than the third, and Spider-Man 3 bears a second place medal between the first two movies. When Danny Elfman left the project (SM3) I could smell trouble a mile away, and it seems I was not wrong: the musical score in this film is equally uneven, but I don't think this was a very big production problem when they were making the movie. Well, here you have my review of SPIDER-MAN 3: a good film that could have been better.