I thoroughly enjoyed the first two installments of Spider-Man. The action sequences were intense, the plots were gripping, and these were backed by solid performances by the leading actors. I intended to watch Spider-Man 3 on the premiere night, but plans fell through and I never got a chance to see it until recently it became available on HD On Demand. It has been a year, and it’s finally time to take Spider-Man 3 off my “to-watch” list and move it into the MovRev vault. So how did this movie fare?
I HATED IT.
One major element missing in Spider-Man 3 is something the previous two installments handled so delicately well - character development. About 30 minutes into the movie, it became apparent that the crew has bitten off more than they can chew. There is barely any depth in any of the characters in Spider-Man 3, be it Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn, or Flint Marko. Their character transitions are rushed and awkward. By jamming several major villains into a 2-hour movie (especially Venom, whose story warrants its own feature length movie to properly set up), the movie compromises on committing to any one character, and rushes from role to role just to get the wheel moving. As a result, the movie becomes solely plot driven. A very weak plot at that, I might add.
The movie fell victim of the typical Hollywood Curse of Sequels. The screenplay is mostly driven by a melodramatic, soap-opera-esque theme of “triangular romance” among Peter, Harry, and Mary Jane. The visual effect is border-line CGI abuse - there’s a serious lack of focus in many of the action scenes, and objects fly in and out of frame lacking any apparent choreographing. The stylistic city swinging we’ve grown to love in Spiderman 1 and 2 have become a complete visual mess in our friendly neighborhood’s third outing.
Overall, Spider-Man 3 has been a very disappointing adventure for me, especially when Spiderman 1 and 2 held the bar so high.
P.S. An interesting side note. Back at my previous job, I recall the street by our building was blocked out every evening for almost a whole week. We knew they were shooting Spider-Man 3, but couldn’t find out which scene it was at that time. As it turns out, it was actually for the grand finale (battle of Sandman, Venom, Green Goblin, and Spiderman). Just wanted to point that out.
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