Spider-Man 3

Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, and Topher Grace

Written by: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Alvin Sargent Based on the comic book by: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Directed by: Sam Raimi

What a finale. A lot of thrills and action…

and a whole lot of crap.

Watching this again, I realize not only was it as bad as I remembered it in the theaters. Instead it was worse. Beyond that, it was insulting. About the only thing it had going for it was good special effects, and some well choreographed fight sequences.

Peter Parker is feeling comfortable in his skin as Spider-man, and more importantly as Peter Parker. He plans to propose to Mary Jane, who is feeling comfortable in her skin as a musical actress. The only problem is there’s more chemistry between Peter and Aunt May than Peter and MJ. During a night out under a big web in the park…very conspicuous. Coincidentally an alien symbiote crash lands right near them, and attaches itself to Peter’s moped.

We are then introduced to Flint Marko, an escaped convict, who crawls into his daughter’s bedroom to deliver mail that was sent back. His daughter is suffering from some disease, but worse from a mother who keeps her window unlocked in New York City?

He then gets trapped in a particle accelerator that is WAY too easy to get into and gets fused with sand, allowing him to morph into sand whenever he pleases.

Then, we get the battle that has been brewing since the end of the first film, Harry Osborn vs. Spider-Man.
All over daddy Goblin’s death and Harry’s wrongful blaming of Spidey. It’s a great action sequence. It’s well choreographed, it’s fun, it’s thrilling. But it’s just ridiculous for it to be happening this way. During the attack, Spidey knocks Harry who hits his head on a pipe before falling a long way to the concrete. The fall should have killed Harry, but he gets short term amnesia instead.

It’s good for Spidey as Harry believes they are best friends again. Whee.

Peter and MJ begin to have issues as her career begins to flounder and Peter keeps trying to relate it to himself. Peter complicates things by saving college lab partner Gwen Stacy’s life. It fuels an upswing of love for Spidey, enough to give him the key to the city.

MJ gets canned from her job, but doesn’t want to ruin Spidey’s day. Spidey makes a spectacular entrance and kisses Gwen before swinging off. It’s all very out of character from the Spidey we know. It’s ridiculous that he would even kiss anyone else, then not realize why MJ gets pissed.

Suddenly Marko comes back as Sandman and attempts to rob an armored car. Spidey to the rescue, but he can’t put the hold on Sandman.

I almost want to stop writing because what came next nearly made me shut off the DVD. We learn from Captain Stacy (played by James Cromwell – WHY would you use such a great actor as Cromwell in such a bit part?) that the guy who killed Ben Parker in the first film, wasn’t really the guy! It was FLINT MARKO!

WHYYYYYYYY!?!?!?!?!?!

Why would you undo what you already created in the first one? Why would you try to shoehorn Marko into the Parker history? He’s not good enough as a villain? It makes literally no sense and burns both sides of the candle. It is insulting to the fans and the character.

Ok.

I’ll try to move on.

Then the symbiote attaches to Spidey’s suit and it turns black. It enhances his powers and enhances his attitude. Parker becomes very reckless and almost lethal in another attack on Sandman. It also helps to further alienate MJ who begins to spend more time with Harry.

Unfortunately, this leads to Harry getting his memory back and after hearing from his father from beyond again, Harry decides to ruin Peter’s life. Harry forces MJ to break up with Peter, and then lets him know why.

This leads Peter to freak out and attack Harry at the mansion. During this fight, an enraged Peter disfigures Harry by redirecting a pumpkin bomb at him, blowing up in his face.

He is then able to direct his anger towards his new arch rival at the Bugle, Eddie Brock. Brock fakes photos of Spider-Man as a thief to gain the staff job that Peter wanted and deserved. Parker exposes Brock and gets the staff job.

He then takes Gwen Stacy out in an effort to make MJ jealous. When that doesn’t go well, and Stacy realizes what he’s doing, she leaves. When bouncers try to take Parker out, he knocks them around and then without realizing it, knocks MJ down.

This serves as a wakeup call and he knows he has to take the suit off. The suit then falls down onto Eddie Brock, who becomes Venom, a darker version of Spider-Man. He approaches Flint and the two decide to team up and use MJ as bait in order to kill Spidey.

Parker sucks it up and goes to Harry to ask for his help for MJs sake. Harry flat out refuses and leaves Spidey to take on the two bad guys.

Of course that’s when Harry’s butler, Bernard finally reveals that Norman Osborne was killed by his own glider, since he cleaned the wounds that night.

Wait wait wait wait wait. He “loves” Harry, but lets him go on for years HATING his best friend, because he think that he killed his father and only NOW tells him, hey, your friend’s telling the truth.

WHAT?

Awful awful awful. I like the idea of mending Peter and Harry’s relationship and I don’t even mind doing it in a cartoony WWE style fashion. But this was beyond the worst soap opera that Hulk Hogan ever acted out.

Then we have the final battle, again a greatly choreographed fight sequence. And Harry Osborn’s WWE-styled return.

And he dies sacrificing his life for Peter. They are able to destroy the symbiote, when Flint comes down to Peter to reveal that he never meant to kill Ben, that it was a desperate act from a man just wanting to save his daughter.

And Peter Parker…

Spider-Man lets him walk away….scot free. No worries about him being an escaped convict, nor the lives he ruined, nor the fact that he tried to kill him and MJ. It just…

Eh, forget it.

I do want to say one thing saved it from an F. J.K. Simmons, in a criminally reduced role, still STILL shines as J. Jonah Jameson. I’ve loved him from the first two films and he doesn’t disappoint, even if they do shackle him a bit.

Overall it’s a failure on all levels. The story is crap, made up of cheesy moment after moment, for characters mugging for the camera. The characters have deteriorated into vapid ghosts of themselves. If there ever is to be a fourth, I hope there’s a long look at what went on in this one and it is taken care of.

D-