A let down

Rating: 1/10 (20 May 2007)

I clutched the arm of my theater chair anxiously, I'd been waiting three years and the wait was finally over. Once the end credits rolled up on screen I confessed myself...disappointed. Yes, the trailers for this movie made it look like a master piece, full of action and wonderful story lines. The movie had very little of this. Yes, there is a lot of action, but it's so spaced out and drowned out with conversations that you feel the movie has the least action of them all. Most action sequences were far too short. The fight sequences between Spidey and Sandman last a little over a minute. Just as your were getting into the fight it ended.
We pick up with were the characters were left in the last film. But it goes no further than that. There is hardly any character development and any possible character development is overshadowed by the messy story lines. The film fails to tie each sub-plot together and any scenes trying to link them together are sloppy and easily thought up. For example, near the end Harry's butler tells Harry his father killed himself and convinces Harry his friends love him. I couldn't believe Raimi had done this. He obviously thought "Hmm...how can Harry change his mind? I can't think of anything...oh well! We'll just introduce a very minor character in the previous films and make him do something huge!" Honestly...Wouldn't a better idea be Harry arguing with his father in the mirror then deciding his father really was an evil man, and Peter had to stop him. He did the right thing? Wouldn't Harry admitting he was wrong truly show the strength of his character? It would mean Harry truly had found redemption.
The biggest let down of this film was definitely the portrayal of Peter's so called 'dark side'. To define it more accurately, it wasn't a dark side, it was a cocky arrogant side. He was hardly aggressive. Instead of a dark, aggressive, violent Peter we have a John Travolta wanna-be dancing down the street and hitting on women. I failed to take his 'dark'* side seriously. I wanted a violent, hateful, corrupted, aggressive Peter. It would have been a much better more interesting story. A word to the not-so-wise Raimi, if you're going to give a character a dark side, DO IT RIGHT. The tag-line 'The Greatest Battles Lies Within' is a huge overstatement. I hardly think trying not to hit on women is dealing with inner turmoil. Peter should have been truly corrupted to the point where he feels he might become a killer, not a high school bully. They could have written a great new story for Peter, but failed horribly. They didn't flesh out this story well enough. Another thing to add to the disaster of the black suit, they really didn't make it obvious to the audience that it enhanced Peter's powers, I found that anything he did with the black suit he most likely could've done without it. There was way too much humor in the movie. Any drama was usually overshadowed by this. I failed to take the movie seriously because of the over use of humor. It was often thrown in at the most inappropriate times that really broke your focus from most action sequences.
After having the black suit for 20 minutes it goes to Eddie. Eddie is hardly a character. I remember Raimi saying he didn't like Eddie because of his lack of humanity but loved him when Alvin wrote a back story and really developed the character. Where was this meat to Eddie's character? He is presented in a poor one-dimensional way. Venom has about 5 minutes of screen time. This was a huge disappointment. He wasn't strong or fast enough, and he didn't give Peter a beating, a few punches here and there were all we saw. Gwen Stacy was a great character, but seeing her more would've been fantastic. Props to Bryce Dallas Howard for her awesome portrayal. The actors did a good job, but probably weren't aware the material they were given was so poor. Sandman was given a great storyline and a lot of meat to his character, no complaints here.
To sum up, I was so hyped for this movie and so let down by it. They writers had a chance to give a great passage of literature but failed in so many ways. It's a pity they can't re-do the black suit storyline after completely destroying it. The movie wasn't terrible, it was okay, but had so much potential. To do this franchise justice they would have to make a fourth and really work their asses off. A fourth would be years away, and after this let-down I can't help but ask myself; will the wait be worth it?