Comic Book Movies & the number 3!

Rating: 5/10 (18 May 2007)

What is it with comic book movies and the number 3...
Superman 3 had Richard Pryor and Superman acting like a jerk.
Batman 3 (that is Batman Forever for those of you who find the Batman titles hard to keep track of) had Jim Carey and Robin acting like a jerk...
and now the third Spiderman where there is Topher Grace(Eric Foreman/ that's 70's show) and Tobey McGuire...Mr.Spiderman himself acting like a jerk.
As perfect as Spiderman 2 was you knew 3 was at the very least going to be a bit of a let down...but jeez...this was down right mediocre. It was not so because it didn't have riveting action or moments of comedic levity as was the case in the prior two Spidermans. Its just with all the story lines going on nothing really came together. Just as you were about ready to get into this movie it jerks you away and throws you into another storyline. Spider-man was an A-Rated franchise but this last installment reminds me of those lesser comic book films like...the Phantom or the Shadow that were alright but never good enough for a sequel.
It was very obvious that the studio factor was weighing in on this film. And this time the cash hungry executives said, "To heck with a sensible story; instead, lets rev up the marketing on this celluloid cash cow. Lets keep every gimmick of the first two films in play, even though they really don't belong; while overplaying the romantic nonsense of boy catches girl, boy looses girl, boy ends up with best friend of boy, best friend turns out to be a bigger jerk, boy gets girl back. And because people do eventually tire of franchises after the third film lets jam-pack this movie with all the villains and subplots, and get all of the money out of it now. Of course any serious character development or finer plot details will have to be scrapped because there simply won't be any-time."
Geeze studio guys with all the extra junk, there was barely any time to actually see the real (Red & Blue) Spider-Man in action with his mask on. I mean 3/4 of the time Spider-Man is either with out his mask or its torn to shreds. What is in Tobey McGuires' contract; that there has to be so much face time? I mean its great to establish the humanity side of Spider-man but Tobey and the director, Sam Raimi, has really taken it too far and has made him into a....sissy boy.
Bottom line is there is entertainment value to be had with this film. Heck its better than most shows on the networks. (TV is dumb, except for HOUSE) With that said, however,Spider-man 3 is just such the expected disappointment that I was hoping it would not be.