Along came a spider, among other things…

Last night I caught the midnight premiere of Spiderman 3, and before I get into the nitty gritty about the movie… I’ll do a quick summary. It’s good, but it’s not great. I liked the movie overall, but while it had some great scenes that were well made.. there were a lot of bad scenes that could and likely should have been sliced to the cutting rooom floor. It’s far from what I would consider a blockbuster, but is still miles above other comic book movies like Daredevil and Ghostrider. So I’m in the middle on this one. Nowhere near disgusted, but nowhere near wowed or overly impressed either.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the symbiant/Venom storyline so to see it used fairly well in this movie was a real treat. While the intro of the symbiant was a tad corny, I’ve seen worse and the effects to bring both the symbiant, the black Spiderman and Venom to life are breathtaking. It made for an interesting storyline and a foundation for the rest of the film to work off of. Yet with this story combined with the others (Sandman, Marriage to MJ, Job security, etc, etc) the movie suffered from sub-plot overload. In this case too much was not enough. They should have trimed it down a bit. By showing off too much, if fell into a trap that other franchises (batman/X-men) have sucumbed.

There’s no doubt what the main story of this movie was, and it was Mary Jane and Peter Parker trying to coexist with their big alter egos (actress/superhero) standing in the way. Was there enough room in the relationship for he four of them? It was an interesting delima but one that made for too many tears. I have nothing against Tobey showing a little sensitivity, but there is a fine line between fighting back a tear and being a whiny bitch. There were too many teary moments for my liking, so many to the point where people were tired of it by the time an appropreiate time came for it to happen. It was overused and lost all meaning by the time the film ended… not exactly the reaction Raimi was hoping for I’d bet.

The darker, more badass Peter Parker care of the evil symbiant was a nice change from the nerd we’re used to seeing all the time. While there were a few corny scenes that could and should have been cut out, his persona was a result of good acting. It was cool to see Peter be anything but his usual good two shoe self, and it made for some very cool scenes, especially when battling Harry/Goblin Jr. in the movie. Again this might have been a more effective storyline had there not been other plots to pull us away from was clearly more interesting.

The Sandman. While I’m not one to praise more than one villian in a movie which rarely works (as Batman about that), I actually did like Thomas Haden Church’s portrayal of the man of sand. With that green shirt he was a perfect cut out from the comic, amazing piece of casting there. Once again the problem is too much being done in one movie as we are never really given a full resolution to what was going on with him and whatnot. It’s a shame we didn’t find out what happened to him or his family when it’s all said and done. Did he turn himself in or run away? Too many questions left unanswered…

There were some good editions to the cast, as Tropher Grace made one hell of a Eddie Brock/Venom. And incase you’re wondering… that blonde bombshell up above of Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacey, a character I never thought they would write into the movies. Both Grace and Howard are scene stealers and almost out perform the leads which is saying something. They were good additions helped the film recover from what could have been a disasterous showing… big time. Was there really a need to hear Ms. Dunst sing more than two times in this movie? I’m sure the critic in the Bugle isn’t the only one who didn’t like that part…

One thing I told the guys after the movie is that this movie has little or no middle ground. Either the scenes were received as off the charts amazing, or were considered bottom of the barrell bad. The movie had it’s a great momemnts and some really, really cheesy/corny moments. If I had to rate the movie out of ten, then I would give it a six and a half, maybe a seven. It was an entertaining film that had a lot of ups, and unfortunately a lot of down moments as well. But look on the bright side, one of those great moments was a fantastic Bruce Campbell cameo, the best cameo of the trilogy and it was funniest part of the movie. It was a decent movie, and if you walk it with not so high expectations… you will have a lot of fun and enjoy it.

Peter