What a Tangled Web Raimi Weaves...

Rating: 4/10 (10 June 2007)

The epic hubris displayed by director Sam Raimi in this latest (and one would hope final) installment of his phenomenally successful Spider-Man series is what frustrates me the most about this overlong, CGI-saturated 2007 movie. It feels like he was given free reign to do whatever he wanted without the intrusion of common sense. The result is a megalomaniacal failure leavened by scattered moments of levity. Written by Raimi, along with his brother Ivan and veteran screenwriter Alvin Sargent, the story begins promisingly with Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man, regaling in his celebrity status and mustering up enough courage up to propose to longtime love Mary-Jane Watson, who is incredibly making her Broadway musical debut.
The film wastes little time in establishing that Peter's ego has run amok - obviously an ironic parallel to Raimi's situation - and that he will be forced to face a crisis of conscience amid the shenanigans of not one but three villains. Spelling out the motivations of each of these characters takes time, as does the resuscitation of the love triangle between Peter, Mary-Jane and Harry Osborn and Peter's guilt over how he responded to his Uncle Ben's murder. Consequently, the movie feels overstuffed by the multiple story lines that only coalesce through pat plot conventions executed toward the end in order for the movie to have an acceptable running time. Moreover, the novelty of the special effects has tangibly worn out since the initial outing, and there is a surprising technical laziness found in some of the action sequences, especially with the overuse of nighttime shots to camouflage some of the battles.
A key problem also lies in the divergent yet predictable ways the villains have been developed. The resuscitated Green Goblin represents the result of revenge, while Flint Marko is a petty criminal caught in a radiation field that turns him into Sandman, a burgeoning creature made of sand (probably the film's best CGI sequence). The most skimpily developed villain is Venom, a gloopy, fast-moving black parasite that takes hold of Peter first before it takes control of professional rival Eddie Brock. If this was not enough, the story also introduces another key female character, model Gwen Stacy who happens to be the daughter of the police chief and Mary-Jane's competition for Peter's affections. All these detours serve to bring Peter to his original sensibilities about being Spider-Man and of course, to the big climactic battle. This is perhaps the most disappointing portion of the movie as at least two far-fetched plot points undermine the dramatic tension and seem to emphasize the silliness of the entire venture.
In keeping with its comic book origins, Raimi infuses the movie with a sense of humor, but the resulting variability in tone threatens to submerge the movie into camp. The principal actors - Tobey Maguire as Peter, Kirsten Dunst as Mary-Jane and James Franco as Harry - are back but give us little additional depth or texture to their characters. Broadway luminary Rosemary Harris is also back lending sage advice as Aunt May, as are J.K. Simmons as blowhard editor J. Jonah Jameson, Elizabeth Banks as saucy Miss Brant and Dylan Baker as the all-knowing Dr. Connors. Thomas Haden Church plays Marko stoically, while Topher Grace is simply irritating as the obnoxious Brock. Bryce Dallas Howard lends the right vacuity to air-headed Gwen, while Theresa Russell is wasted in a cameo as Marko's defeated wife. This is one dismal blockbuster worth skipping.