What Was the Movie Called Again?

Rating: 3/10 (28 February 2014)

On August 18, 2002, the first Spider-Man movie was shown in theaters. It made $821 million worldwide with two Academy Award nominations: best sound and best visual effects. On June 30, 2004, Spider-Man 2 came out. It made $783 million worldwide with three Academy Awards nominations: best sound, best sound editing and best visual effects, which it won. The studio then released a preview one year before its newest movie, Spider-Man 3, and it became extremely popular on You Tube. I had the enormous privilege of seeing this movie on May 4, 2007, at the midnight showing. When the credits rolled up at the end of the movie, I was dissatisfied, but why? I tried to come up with reasons why I disliked the movie. My answer came after I walked out of the theater and overheard a conversation. One person stated, "The movie was that close to being a chick flick." Well it wasn't "that close". It was that. The creators of the movie completely forgot this film was called "Spider- Man", not "Peter Parker". The filmmakers put too many villains into one movie, which led us out of the main plot. Plus the dull acting from Toby Maguire and others was awful and embarrassing to watch.
The first part of the film shows us that Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter Parker (Toby Maguire) still love each other, as if that was not obvious in the first two movies. Peter thinks he's now ready to ask Mary Jane to marry him, but like every other romantic film, problems arise and they do not get married. But wait, it gets worse. Peter's ex-friend, Harry (James Franco) still wants revenge for his father's death. So, how does he do it? Torture him? Kill him? No. He attacks his heart. Harry forces Mary Jane to tell Peter she does not love him anymore, and Peter Parker buys it. This is just the beginning of this sweetheart movie. Peter starts hitting on other girls and tries to make Mary Jane jealous. Of course, the movie ends with Spider-Man saving Mary Jane and they finally realize they were meant for each other. So let me ask a question: does it take three movies for us to realize that or did we know it from the first scene of Spider-Man 1?
Now even if the romance part of the movie was likable, the action was not. The movie had too many villains. There was the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), who turns out to be the real killer of Peter's uncle, Ben. Of course, there was Peter's ex-friend, Harry, and then the late added villain, Venom (Topher Grace). So in total, that's three villains? Sounds like this could be a fun film. It's not. The movie went with four story lines: three villains and the hero. Harry and Peter were explained in the previous paragraph, so now let's talk about the other two villains. The Sandman, whose real name is Marco, has a daughter, named Penny, who's infected with some sort of illness, but we never find out what it is. Then there's Eddie Brock, who half way through the film becomes Venom. According to most polls and surveys, Spider-Man fans love Venom the most, yet we did not see much of Venom in the film. The movie had so much information, we did not know what we should walk away with. It shifted away from the main plot when it needed to focus more on the conflict between Peter and Harry.
The worst part about the entire movie was the acting. Let's start with Toby Maguire. When I was watching this movie in the theater, whenever Maguire would get emotional, everyone laughed at him. Maguire's acting and facial expressions were so lame, it was slightly burdensome to watch. The Sandman, however, had absolutely no facial expressions. Every expression was exactly the same. When he was sad, he frowned. When he was angry, he frowned. Poor Eddie Brock just had dull lines. In one scene, when Eddie had Spider-Man tied up, Peter tells Eddie that he needs to take off the Venom suit because its enormous power is controlling him, to which Eddie replies, "I like being bad. It makes me happy." At that moment, the whole movie turned from a chick flick into a kid's movie.
There are two questions that still hold for this movie: was there anything good in this movie, and could it have been done better. Although I may have criticized Spider-Man 3 throughout this paper, there were some moments in the film that worked out nicely; like the one scene at the French restaurant, where Peter was going to hide his ring for Mary Jane in a glass of wine as a surprise proposal. It was a humorous scene allowing us to laugh for a purposeful reason. The film also had esteeming, valuable life lessons, especially at the end of the film when the Sandman explains to Peter that he only robbed to support his daughter. He also explained how killing Peter's uncle, Ben, was an accident. The Sandman only asked Peter to understand, but instead Peter forgives him. We should always be forgiving instead of seeking revenge. Now, could they have done a better job on the movie? Of course they could have. All they really needed to have done was to get rid of some of the distractions in the film to make room for more Spider-Man action. One of the villains needed to have been let go; either the Sandman or Venom. Some of those scenes with Mary Jane having problems with Peter should have been cut, but most of all, the writers definitely needed to fix those corny lines. The overall summary to this movie: disappointing.