Great Expectations...

Rating: 5/10 (4 May 2007)

Before you turn away, know this: I'm a huge Spiderman fan; he's my favorite superhero and I adored the first two. I liked this movie, but it's more complicated than this. I was about to go see it again with some friends tomorrow, but now I won't. I don't even know if I should get it on DVD or add it to my favorites, although I'll probably do both (I can't have 1 and 2 and not have 3). In the long run though, I believe that this movie was a dreadful victim of circumstances and had the potential to be something much greater and better (and if Sam Raimi had stuck to his original plan for it rather than listening to Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin, I'm sure it would have). So anyway on to the review. This movie was two and a half hours long, but for all it contained, it was still too short. Too much was packed into this movie; far, far too much. Too many villains, and too many characters. Gwen Stacy was entirely unnecessary (even played by the wonderful Bryce Howard), and one of the villains, be it Venom or Sandman, also had to be left out. In fact, the entire plot was a mess and instead of making sense, it was only more confusing from one moment to the next, up to the point when you couldn't but wonder, 'what are they on about now?'. The acting in this movie wasn't exactly something to write home about, and Tobey Maguire disappointed me the most (and I wish I didn't have to say that because he is one of my favorite actors). His acting suffered greatly from the writing his character suffered from. Most of his on-screen time, he looked like he didn't quite know what to do with himself or what they wanted from him. He had no idea what his character should be like in (whatever) particular situation and frankly, I can't blame him, because neither did I. as an actor, I'm sure this film was hell on earth to go through. The supporting actors were all rather flat as well, and Kirsten Dunst has given, again, one of her less-than-admirable performances (and unlike Tobey, she can't quite blame it on her character). The only ones I can praise in this movie to a certain extent are James Franco and Rosemary Harris. They are the only ones, in this chaos, that managed to somehow make sense, and bearing in mind their character suffered the least, they at least had it easy. Some scenes in the film were so cheese dripping that I wanted to choke. I actually laughed out loud in that dreadful all-American scene of Spiderman popping up in front of the flag. The American patriotism and the idiotic news report simply killed the movie all on their own to a certain extent. That aside, there was far too much symbolism, and what's worse, for some reason they felt they had to spell it out for us, and what is even worse than overdone symbolism is obvious symbolism. The religious connotations in the church ridding him of evil and the bad guy (who abused god for evil) getting it on himself instead was way overdone, and same with Harry's half mutilated face, apparently reflecting his inner battle, and of course there is more. And just something I wonder couldn't his all-knowing butler tell him that daddy had died by his own hand before Peter kicked half of his ass? Of course not, because that would have actually made sense. Leaving out New York's obsession with Spiderman and the utterly and dreadfully idiotic Spiderman-parade would have made sense also. Most of the themes examined in this film were too far fetched and undeveloped. The father-daughter thing with Sandman made me roll my eyes (me, the ultimate daddy's girl!), Eddie's idiotic competitiveness-turned-vengeance-gig got the same reaction. The Peter/M.J storyline was completely senseless and there was absolutely no reason for them to be so unrecognizably messed up that I could see. They should have just given them their happily-ever-after cheese and moved on. The only good thing was the Peter/Harry relationship development, but even that was somewhat scorched around the edges. In fact, Harry was almost the only good thing about it, and to top the already misguided and flawed ending, they killed him off. The special effects were awesome, nothing to say there. The black-suited Spiderman was absolutely fantastic and I loved every second. However, the special effects were, also, overdone. There were simply too many of them. The best thing about special effects is when they are done within reason, when you consciously don't notice them. Unfortunately, it was not the case in "Spiderman 3". The battles themselves often felt like lesser remakes of something we had seen in the previous two films, and that was a shame. I can't say I was all-around happy with the way they were done. There were, of course, quite a few good moments. The black-Spiderman scenes were superb, as well as some of Tobey's other scenes (especially in the evil-Peter capacity), such as his little performance in the jazz club, that was really fun to watch. His teaming up with Harry in the end was also rather well done. Well what else is there to say, really? I don't know. I'm thinking right now about something definitely good that I could point out, but I seem to have run out of those (already pointed out the ones that were worthwhile). Yes, I know for a fact now, I will get this film on DVD because I simply can't not add it to my collection, and hell, the Peter/Harry dynamics and the black suit alone made it worthwhile. And still, I can't help but wish for so many things to have been different. I was expecting this one to be the best of the three, and I'm afraid it just might be the worst.