Finally, the long awaited arrival of Spider-Man 3. This is a movie I’ve been waiting to see since they first announced its production. I eagerly awaited to see how Raimi, at the helm for the third time, was going to portray the Sandman and Venom. Unfortunately you’ve got to wait a bit to get to them, and ultimately it hurts the film a little.
We start out with Peter Parker, played by Tobey Maguire, with his life finally in order. Mary Jane, played by Kirsten Dunst, and Peter are finally a couple and he’s finally able to openly tell her that loves her. He is excelling in school, and the city has started to idolize and support Spider-Man. Even though love is being showered upon him from everywhere there’s still one person that wants to see Peter and Spidey take a tumble, good ol’ Harry Osborn, played by James Franco, still hasn’t forgiven him for the alleged murder of his father and he’s still planning to avenge his death by killing Spider-Man. Peter’s also developed a fierce rivalry with a new photographer at the Daily Bugle that would do anything for Peter’s job.
The biggest problem with this film is that with three villains, who all need a certain amount of back story and character development, the task of representing each equally proved to be too difficult. With the high anticipation of seeing Venom it’s as if they lost sight of Sandman, because the Venom saga and black suit storyline would be much more engaging. It didn’t help that they focused on Peter and MJ’s romance a little too much as well, they surely could have cut some of their scenes and included a bit more backstory for each villian.
One other problem I noticed this time around was the massive amount of camp. I know Spider-Man is known for cheesy dialog, but to see him paraded around New York city yelling “shazam” and thrusting his hips at pretty girls on the sidewalk was just a bit too much to bear with.
Not all was lost though. There was still plenty of web-slinging action shots and each fight sequence is enough to remind every fan why Spider-Man is one of the greatest superhero of all time. Each fight sequence was amazing, displaying the greatest achievements in special effects that Hollywood has to offer. It some weird way, the great special effects made the movie a bit more bareable.
I walked out of the theater feeling sorely disappointed, having loved the first two movies I really wanted to love this one, but I couldn’t. It is safe to say that I have no desire to see Spider-Man 3 again until its DVD release. Overall it wasn’t that bad, just disappointing. Go in with lower expectations and you might enjoy it better.