With great money and publicity comes great responsibility

Rating: 7/10 (2 May 2007)

With great money and publicity comes great responsibility, responsibility to entertain and not to take the audiences for granted. To say that I was overexcited, to say that the only thing on my mind for the past two days was Spider Man would be an understatement. I am a huge fan of the earlier two movies; I saw the first one four times when it was released in the theatric and have lost count on how many times on DVD. Ditto for the second. The third installment is ten times the spectacle of its two predecessors; in fact it dwarfs the first installment. The romantic angle is much deeper than the second one; I guess these are the main reasons why most of us loved the first two movies. Well, I had a third, I loved the mythology. The two movies were an intelligent mixture of being funny and serious, but the superhero status of the character was always maintained, a superhero who would go to any lengths for the benefit of others, and of course for no selfish reasons. SPIDERMAN 2 got that spectacularly well and my personal favorite among all the superhero movies ever made, BATMAN BEGINS got that the best. But here, to my utter disappointment, every damn thing is personal. Spiderman here is not the superhero we know of, he is just a guy doing everything for his own self. I hate to admit that I hated it, absolutely hated it and that was the last thing I expected the movie to falter on. Watching the movie, I was reminded of two other movies, STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI and THE GODFATHER III. When compared to other superhero franchisees excluding of course BATMAN BEGINS (one of the greatest movies ever seen by your's truly, at least a 100 times), SPIDERMAN 3 stands head and shoulders above. But we never were comparing it to other movies, were we? THE GODFATHER III ought to be compared to its two illustrious predecessors and although it is a solid motion picture, it comes across as considerably weak against them. I guess the same would stand for SPIDERMAN 3. And as for watching it again, I am not exactly over the moon right now.
*******SPOILER ALERT: THE BELOW PASSAGE MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS***** Well, my first grudge is the romantic angle. It needlessly drags the movie; the love story actually seems forced. I for one thought that the romantic angle has been done away with and it is now for bigger things, one less thing for Spiderman to worry about. But SPIDERMAN 3 is all about the romantic angle between MJ and Peter and believe it or not, it is a love quadrangle.
As a result of that, the pacing and the psychology of the movie are as inconsistent bas they get. At times, SPIDERMAN 3 is pure magic, especially the sequences involving Spiderman/Peter Parker and Eddie Brock. Topher Grace is just fantastically wonderful and his is the best performance of the movie. The actions sequences, the ingredients that have the responsibility to give Sony its huge sum back are wonderful, to say the least. I wouldn't divulge anything about it but the last fight, Spiderman and three villains- Goblin, Sandman and Venom is one of the finest moments in superhero movie history and that includes the climax of BATMAN BEGINS. It is arguably the closest thing to comic books fun ever put on celluloid. The three-villain strategy could so easily have gone into BATMAN AND ROBIN territory (arguably the worst movie of all time), but Sam Raimi does a fantastic job to make it the movie's strongest moment.
The biggest problem is the script. Everything seemed so real in SPIDERMAN and SPIDERMAN 2. Here it is all silly and the characters are thinner than paper; Venom and Sandman are instruments to bring effects into the movie and have no business in the movie other than that. That is a shame from a franchisee where Green Goblin was so strongly characterized and Doc Ock was simply out of the park. All this when Venom is such a strong character. SPDIERMAN 3 feels more like your usual summer action blockbuster, watch it for action and get the hell out of there, it isn't worth your attention. One thing that SPIDERMAN 2 and BATMAN BEGINS taught the superhero franchisee is that there's no compromise on weak characters. SUPERMAN RETURNS failed because everything was so black and white. SPDIERMAN 3 is exactly like SUPERMAN RETURNS, dull, bloated but interspersed with absolute moments of magic.
What were Bryce Dallas Howard and James Cromwell doing there by the way? Absolutely wasted, both of them.
The ending is a pathetic, to put it best. I just don't get it as to why everybody concerned is considering this as a trilogy when it is supposed to be a franchisee. I mean, there is deliberate winding up done at the end, a la LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING. It absolutely bets the hell out of any hope that the movie would end on a high note. A point to be noted for all people out there making a series; end it on a high note. When MJ says, "Go get'em Tiger in SPIDERMAN 2, it brought a million goose bumps on me. When Gordon shows the deck of cards to Batman in BATMAN BEGINS there were whistles all round the theater. And when Gordon says," I never saidThank you" and Batman turns and replies," And you never will have to" and Hans Zimmer's score goes into a crescendo, everyone got up and clapped. That is what is going to put bums on the seat the next time around. But Sam Raimi doesn't seem to be too keen on extending the franchisee, well to hell with that. Sony would find a new director, who could do a better job. I just hated the way they ended it.