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With Great Power . . .

May 5, 2007 1:44 AM

r. Vice, Ms. PH, and I went to see Spider-Man 3 tonight. It was decent, but I think we all agreed that it fell far short of matching its predecessors. The first Spider-Man movie was pretty good. It took the characters seriously, gave them real human motivations and emotions, and was action packed. As good as the first movie was, the second set a high-water mark for movies based on comic-book characters that was not surpassed, in my opinion, until Superman Returns. For most, though, I think Spider-Man 2, together with Batman Begins, represents the best adventure for any costumed crime fighter on the big screen.

Spider-Man 2 pretty much had everything an excellent movie should have: character development, emotion, action, suspense, great acting, good effects. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts. My favorite scene is the one where Spider-Man is fighting Doc Oc on the subway and, after saving everyone, faints, only to be saved by the people on the train who tell him that they won't tell anyone that they've seen him without his mask. That scene, in my opinion, is one of the best representations of the superhero-normal person dynamic. Ultimately, Spider-Man's not out for the accolades, but it's nice when he gets them.

Needless to say, then, that Spider-Man 3 had some big shoes to fill. I won't say too many specific things; movie reviews are more the province of Mr. Vice. Still, I'll offer a few general comments.

Taken on its own terms, the movie wasn't bad. It was entertaining. There were some funny parts and some exciting parts. The actors all did pretty well, especially Thomas Hayden Church as the Sandman and Topher Grace as Eddie Brock/Venom. What fell flat--at least for me--was the love-story aspect. In the past movies, the Mary Jane-Peter relationship has been very believable. Here, it was disappointing and the actors (especially Kristin Dunst) just didn't do what they needed to do to make this work.

By far the worst aspect of the movie was what can only be described as a twenty-minute strutting and dancing sequence. At the risk of giving away one plot element, the Venom symbiote (aka "the black costume") starts to influence Peter Parker's behavior. The result? Peter walks around strutting his shit like he's in fucking Saturday Night Fever (I think he even actually makes the little hand motion where you pretend to shoot someone), buys a dark suit (which he pairs with a dark shirt and no tie), makes a huge production of brushing his hair into his eyes (apparently that means he's evil or badass or something), takes Gwen Stacy to the bar where Mary Jane is working (after Harry Osborne forced Mary Jane to break up with Peter), and then--I'm not making this up--improvises some jazz piano, jams with the band for a second, then dances all over the room, jumping from table top to table top while swilling a martini, surfs across the room on a chair, and dirty dances with Gwen in full view of Mary Jane. Yes, that actually happens in the movie.

The whole thing was just ridiculous. To make matters worse, Tobey McGuire is clearly a huge dork in real life. Mr. McGuire is such a dork, in fact, that he was completely unable to suppress his dork-like tendencies, even for the scenes in which Peter was supposed to be suave and bad-boy-esque. The strutting scenes made me laugh out loud in the theatre. It was bad.

Overall, though, the movie was decent. It's not as good as the first two, but, then, it would have been hard for it to surpass those efforts. I will say that it's better than X3, which was crap.

Also, I have no doubt that it'll be infinitly better than the new Fantastic Four movie which is going to suck on an unprecedented level. I mean, seriously. The Silver Surfer is a stupid character. Why the fuck would you surf in space. You wouldn't. Unless you were created by idiots in the 1960s. My apologies, Stan Lee, but you dropped the ball here.

Oh. And a lot of songs from my previous post remain unidentified. Come on, people! You can do this.



9 Comments


Santi said:

We too saw Spiderman 3 last night. I think the best way to describe it comes from a review I read yesterday morning: "It represents the best and worst of the series."

Yes, it was nowhere near the first two in quality, and yes it was certainly one of cheesiest (sp?) movies ever, but still it was a fucking awesome movie. The special effects and villains were mind-blowing in my opinion, and even though it had too many villains and plots (as many reviews have also suggested), it was just flat out fucking entertaining. Adding to the entertainment was audience involvement (hissing, booing, clapping, cheering), it was just purely awesome.

So even though it was not what I expected after the first two, it still lived up to the hype for me... although for different reasons than what I was hoping for. Grade: A+++

May 5, 2007 11:14 AM



Santi said:

Oh, and just to add, the entire audience (as you) were in hysterics during the strutting/dancing sequence. I still classify that as awesome (in a sense) though.

May 5, 2007 12:44 PM



Utah said:

I will take your disfavorable comparison to Saturday Night Fever to imply Saturday Night Fever also sucked. Any attack on Saturday Night Fever is an attack on Mr. Barry Gibb, and we all know that is unacceptable.

May 5, 2007 4:01 PM



Ismael Tapia II said:

Santi,
The movie was definitely entertaining. But it didn't have the substance of the previous two movies. This movie, in my opinion, was more fluff than the first two, which were, if not dramatic masterpieces, then certainly at least more substantial than the average superhero flick. This movie relied more on explosions and giant sand monsters where the first two had adventure and genuine heart, something this one lacked, in my opinion.

The crowd is something you just can't replicate, and is one of the reasons I always try to see a movie I'm really excited about on opening night. It's worth standing in line to be in an audience of people who share your passion for what you're watching. The first time I saw Attack of the Clones, people lost their shit both when Mace Windu showed up at the Genosian fight and when Yoda went medieval on Count Dooku. And then there was the Return of the King experience--awesome. It's just not the same watching a movie like that without the crowd experience.

Mr. Utah,
Barry Gibb sucks, as do all his brothers. Deal with it.

May 5, 2007 5:56 PM



TheExpat said:

Hey, let's not all go outing dorks here. Glass houses, stones and all that, you know?

May 5, 2007 7:15 PM



Dee said:

I thought the strutting was supposed to be awesomely bad/hence all the hot chicks giving him the "WTF?" faces. i still had to avert my eyes, but I appreciated the moment all the same. I can't believe you didn't mention the far-more heinous omlette-making/Twist scene. my skin crawls at the very thought of it.


that said, i had fun watching the movie, which is what i wanted out of it. i had the added advantage, when things were slow or embarrassing, of trying to read the chinese subtitles. and the audience was rad. they went crazy for (of all things) the scene when Jameson keeps nearly taking the wrong medicine. ha.

May 6, 2007 10:03 PM



Ismael Tapia II said:

Dee,
Oh man, I completely forgot about the omlette-twist scene. That scene was unforgivable. Like--why? When would you ever engage in random, spontaneous twisting? Never, that's when.

May 7, 2007 2:00 PM



Dee said:

wait, now that you mention it...i remember Expat wooing me once with his fancy footwork whilst cooking dinner. NOT. i would have been outta there until he dealt with his unresolved gay issues.

May 7, 2007 8:29 PM



Eliza said:

OMG, I can not forgive. I loved Silver Surfer.

Oh wounded, so wounded.

May 9, 2007 9:57 AM



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