Spiderman 3
I don’t normally review films or give my opinions publicly on them. Last night I went to see Spiderman 3 and I was so incensed by it, I feel I simply must say what’s on my mind regarding this film.
Spiderman 3 is a horrible, horrible movie. It is worse than Spiderman 1, which I didn’t think much of either. I put S1 on par with Daredevil. It wasn’t wholly awful, there were some entertaining parts, so here’s my positives and negatives:
The Good:
- Bruce Campbell’s performance as a French resterauntuer was simply fantastic. Hilarious in a John Cleese-style motif, Campbell was brilliant in its execution.
- Peter Parker walking down the street thinking he’s the shiz niz, after submitting himself to Venom, was also hilarious.
- Tobey Maguire can play a bad guy very well. He should be type cast as such. His other character acting skills I’ll get to in the bad.
- The action scenes were fantastic to watch. As you’d expect.
The Bad:
- Tobey Maguire can’t act unless he’s playing a complete bastard. As Peter Parker he had one facial expression; benign retardation.
- The movie was about 1 hour too long. Spiderman 3 would have been much better had they shortened or even cut out the scenes relating to the relationships of Peter Parker, Mary-Jane et al.
- There was no explanation for the venom creature. A meteorite landed and it crawled out. Coincidentally in a time and place where the only people around, in New York city mind, were Peter and Mary-Jane. What!? The movie spent 2.5 hours getting to little point, and they couldn’t give any background for the main enemy!?
- A portion of the venom creature was indentified by a physicist as looking like “a chondritic meteorite of the 70s”. No it didn’t, and I know it.
- At the end of the movie, when Spiderman races to save Mary-Jane in the finale battle-royale, he leaps from building to building and moves in front of a giant American flag. What!? This isn’t a moment of patriotism. It’s a man with power racing to save the woman he loves. This is not an action American at its base. I have many american friends, but seriously, if you’d been sitting in the same theatre I was, i.e, one not in the US, the overwhelming mutter at this scene was a whole-hearted “fuck off!”. American patriotism has no place in an international film like Spiderman. Seriously? Fuck off.
And I’ll leave it there. Save your cash, rent the DVD. It’s not worth a cinema ticket to see. And talking of the price of a cinema ticket, Sam Raimi and Sony owe me at least half of my money back.
I give Spiderman 3 a mark of 45%.
3 Responses to “Spiderman 3”
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01
by Reed Richards @ 2007-05-07 0503 UTCThanks for the review. We mostly agree, but, fuck off yourself. Now you know the only poart we disagree on. Spiderman is not an international film, it is an American film. His costume is red white and blue and it sure ain’t French. Any effort to make it an international film is a bastardization of some of the greatest American culture and a little venom into other cultures as well. This is not to say that one has to like Americans. It just means you are as much as a miscreant to mess with Spidey as some other buffon who would mess with French Fries and Danish. Give the heart of every civilization its appropriate respect guy.
But I’m not sweating it, the film did really suck. My only other disagreement with you is that Peter Parker is a classic nerd. That “blublublublulllbbblllublu” look on his face is fitting. Being the “Fonz with his chondite-ic meteorite of the seventies (no I am clueless what it has to do with the 70′s as in Marvelandia Venom was introduced in May 1984 (#252) and did not get caught from a meteorite, Parker brought it back froman alien world after his spideysuit wasn’t drycleaned.)
The Sandman’s compassionate side was about as stinky as the enjoyable scene of him getting diluted by diahrrea in the sewer pipes. And the weak MJ was vermin vomit.
My favorite scene was the cameo of Stan Lee saying ‘Nuff said and the last name Ditcovichski or whatever they were called. And yeah, the restaurant was almost as good as shoving the flag down Osama throat.
The black spiderman web was nothing of symmatry, it looked more like an exploded Hershey bar in a fish net after being ripped apart by a troop of Great Whirte Sharks.
02
by Yorrike @ 2007-05-07 0520 UTCMy point was it was completely unnecessary. If you as an American realise it’s an American film, cool. Having that overt patriotism in there did nothing but annoy non-Americans. What was Raimi trying to prove? It made no sense. “I’m Spiderman, I have to save Mary-Jane. Go America! There she is, better get my fight on”. It’d be like him swinging by a shop window with PS3s on display. Yes, we know it’s a Sony film, now get on with it.
03
by Reed Richards @ 2007-05-08 2342 UTCOK, I’ll concede you have a point if you’ll just consider that Spider-man (very New Yorker in a post 911 NY which was a real event with devastating non-political fallout) was part of the Baby-boomers whose parents were Superman (Truth, Justice, and the American Way – flag waving in the background) and Captain America (’nuff said). It is too bad the current American administration has squandered this to the point that we are having to have this discussion at all. If it were James Bond, I’d be just as happy with the Union Jack, I did find your Sony comment good, hilarious and a bit ironic, too. Spidey is a comic character famous for verbal jousting with his adversaries as he exchanges fatal blows – I mention this as you thought rescuing MJ was too serious for a flag scene en route. Heck, if he is teetering on the edge of death and making jokes all the time, I think a flag scene is not out of step with the base comic book style and am personally glad that that wasn’t sacrificed. BTW, I’m not American if American means have the USA nationality and I am not pleased with recent developments in that country any more than you probably are. Just, Spider-man is not to blame and for nostalgia’s sake I would be disappointed with efforts to increase film income by changing his creaters idea of his origins and morals, however corney they sound in today’s world to us experts. Now, if only the film were better quality, I’d feel comfortable defending this aspect of it, but the truth is I don’t for its overall failure in other departments. Best!