Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Spider-Man 3 (Sam Raimi, 2007) Review

*ahem* This may be hard to get off my chest. Let me just...prepare myself. I'm going to blow your mind....I like Spider-Man 3. Surprised? If you said no then you clearly don't spend enough time on the internet. For those who don't know, the last film in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy did pretty well when it first came out but OH MAN were the fans pissed. There are many reasons to this but I think we should look at the narrtive first. Let's dive in.

After the finale of Spider-Man 2 where Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) discovers Peter Parker (Tobey Mcguire), Harry Osborn (James Franco) decides to take revenge into his own hands and tries to kill Spider-Man for killing his father (if you've seen the first film, you know that's not entirely true) and is put into a coma after a run in with Spidey. This results in Peter and Mary Jane's relationship deteriating and isn't helped by the introduction of Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard). Meanwhile, escaped convict Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) escapes into a testing laboratory and is turned into the ferocious Sandman. Could things get any worse? Yes. Yes they can. A black substance crashes on Earth and proceeds to manipulate Peter and brings out his dark side. Also, A new worker at the Daily Bugle, Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), is gunning for Peter's job! This is just one of those days.

One of the biggest complaints is that there are way too many villains in this film. Sandman, New Goblin/Harry Osborn and Venom all feature as the main antagonist (although New Goblin is downplayed in comparison). The reasont his is so complained about is because it does feel cluttered with villains but I feel it's spaced out well. Each villain is given time to develop (except Venom...more on that later) and it does pay off for one hell of a finale. Personally I feel there are way too many side characters. Was Gwen Stacy really nessecary? No. No she was not. Venom, for those who don't know, is Spider-Man's biggest villain. He's like Batman's Joker, Iron Man's Mandarin or Superman's Lex Luthor. Naturally he was hyped up as hell...it's a shame he was in it for ABOUT TEN MINUTES!!! Point taken off for that. It's unacceptable.

I must address the BIGGEST criticism and that is Peter Parker when he's infected with the symbiote. Instead of being angsty and emo as the posters would suggest he's...dancing around and eating milk and cookies. I wrote that last bit with my hand resting on my forehead...eeeehhhh. Yes, I hate the infamous dancing as much as the next guy but I look past that and focus on the best scenes of the film including all the fights with Sandman (especially the subway battle) and the epic finale. The last couple of scenes wrap up the trilogy very tightly with a big reveal that goes back as far as the first film.

Spider-Man 3 is attacked by haters for reasons that can easily be overlooked (except maybe the dancing scene...that was...questionable to say the least) and I just focus on the good stuff. There is a lot in here that people miss out. Best in the franchise? No. Worst? Yeah. Bad film? No way! It's a great finale to the series and I can't wait for the reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. What's that? It's out already...we'll see what happens then...keep watching this space.

Verdict:
7/10
A good film filled with great characters and a decent plot that people seem to ignore.

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