Bad. Batman and Robin bad. Two and a half hours I'll never get back.

Rating: 1/10 (6 May 2007)

SPOILERS ARE PROBABLY ABUNDANT Maybe it is because I went into this with a non-fanboy perspective, but pretty much the best part of this movie was the prequel comic written by Todd Dezago (GO TODD!) that I got before the movie. The film was, for me, on par with Batman and Robin. While it started off great in the first hour, suddenly the movie deteriorated right before my very eyes. The last hour of the movie was spent by my girlfriend and I MOCKING the film in a packed theater. By the time we rolled around to Mary Jane singing ANOTHER song at the end, we just got up and left the theater.
The first big fault is the under use of Thomas Haden Church. Here is a man who is an amazing actor, perhaps at the level of both Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina. I was quite happy with his casting and was happy to see him in this flick. However Church never gets to spread his wings as Sandman. While the other flicks allowed the baddies to grow this film allowed Sandman to get his powers, have a bit of growth, and then disappear for most of the film. The final result was even worse? Even though Sandman had killed his uncle, escaped from prison, robbed banks, caused massive collateral damage on the city streets, and who knows how many other crimes, Spidey decides he can 'forgive' Flint Marko for killing his uncle and then Sandman just LEAVES. And Spidey, crying, allows him too. All because he's forgiven? Bad scripting was truly in abundance here and one can really think that Sam Raimi may have finally lost it on this film. I've enjoyed all of Sam's work from the Evil Dead flicks, to Darkman, to Love of the Game, Quick and the Dead, and the first two Spidey flicks. However he absolutely tried to cram way too much into this movie. It might have even worked, might have, if not for the cringe worthy parts that had no sense being in the film. Evil Peter dancing on the streets a la Saturday Night Fever? The bad one man dance off in the dance club? Mary Jane singing her heart out when she had EVERY right to be fired...for Kirsten Dunst cannot sing. I had heard there was singing and dancing but these moments, ESPECIALLY the Peter moments, were just horrible. It reminded of those cringe-worthy Batman and Robin moments where the Batmobile went up the building and Mr. Freeze having a dial that turns HOT in his lair when the man can only have it COLD. Kids yelling out "OH WICKED COOL". The HORRIBLE 'reporters' at the end? The part where Spidey lands right next to the flag. The theater burst out laughing! Last time I heard that was with Vader's "NOOOOO" at the end of Episode 3. It's a shame because the first hour had great scripting, great action, and great lines. It was almost like a different writer and different director took over for the rest of the film.
Topher Grace. Oh Topher. He was someone else I was very excited about in casting. Sure fanboys might be like, "But Eddie Brock is this big guy" but I liked seeing him as this slimy, young antithesis to Peter. Yet Topher wasn't great in this film at all. You are talking to someone who sat threw Win A Date With Tad Hamilton and actually liked it. Topher was great in That 70's Show, shined in Traffic, and has had several great roles since. His early appearances in this movie are great but when he is actually Venom, he falls into the horrible acting motif.
AND THE UNMASKINGS. Why wear a mask if you don't want a secret identity??? Every twenty seconds Spidey is taking his mask off. He arrives at the parade with his mask off. In a city like New York everyone is ALWAYS looking around with a camera. While Peter stands there, mask off, smiling at the crowd, someone is sure to snap a shot of him without a mask. And as the movie goes on you start to wonder why does he wear a mask at all if he just has it off all the time. Goblin Jr. seemed to have a mask on only to have the cool Stargate effect to show his face and of course Venom, when he wants to talk, has to go back to Eddie's face to lay whatever horribly scripted diatribe on us.
Evil Peter. God. How horrible this was. Tobey Maguire is a decent actor and has been good in these films, but why God why? He gets the symbiote and suddenly he's evil and we KNOW it because he wears his BANGS FORWARD. Bangs forward = EVIL PETER! This was so laughably bad especially when Peter starts dancing in the Manhattan streets.
The characters certainly weren't sleepwalking through their performances but Sam Raimi's script and directing certainly brought this movie down to a whole new level. It WAS Batman and Robin bad. Superman Returns bad. Catwoman bad. Dare I say...Tank Girl bad. Barb Wire bad. I love a great deal of comic book movies and I can usually take EH movies. I liked all the FF movies (Corman included). Liked Daredevil. Thought Elektra was eh-okay. Hulk grew on me. As did Punisher. But this film was like an atrocity. Even the first hour which was good was fully diminished by the end. I'm fairly certain that I could never watch this movie again. I'd watch Ghost Rider a million times in a row before I could ever bring myself to watch this movie again.