Review of Spider-Man 3 (2007) by Stephen W — 09 May 2016

After the brilliance that was Spider-Man 2, this movie was a big step down in terms of quality. The main problem being that there is just too much going in in the script, that it all comes out as rushed, half baked, and often cheesy and contrived.

All the main cast are back again. Tobey Maguire does get to deliver some good scenes, like his anger over the Sandman/Ben connection, and his conflict with Harry Osborn. But he also delivers some cringe worthy stuff, notably the dancing stuff.

Kirsten Dunst is absolutely dire as MJ. She irritates, moans, criticizes, and cries her way through the movie. She is truly unlikable in this movie. She commits so many offenses in this movie. From her hypocritical behavior over the Spidey/Gwen publicity kiss, to giving into Harry's empty threat to break Peter's heart, to her constant whining about her fading career.

James Franco is probably the best actor of the movie. Although his character falls short in several areas. For starters he is not a Goblin. He is a guy in a black jumpsuit on a hoverboard. His grand revenge plan is nothing more than a silly break up of Peter and MJ, which made no sense. He spends a lot of the movie as a nice guy with amnesia, too. That said, he does deliver some great stuff. Notably his gloating to Peter about breaking him and MJ up. And that mansion fight was superb. His death scene was also emotionally great.

Then we have Sandman, played by Thomas Haden Church, an actor who is utterly wasted in this movie. Sandman seems like an out of place element. He is a poor thief, who just wants to steal some money to help his sick daughter. But he's got a backstory. Turns out he's the guy who actually shot Uncle Ben. The other guy from Spider-Man 1 was just an accomplice. A horrible and needless contrived connection of Sandman to Peter.

Sandman's is a visually pleasing villain (his birth scene is incredible), except in the scenes where he grows to giant proportions, and comes across as a retarded version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. Church is a fine actor, but he is just a cog in a CGI machine. He has so little dialogue.

Topher Grace plays the third baddie in the movie's trio of villains. He is Eddie Brock, a cocky and sleazy photographer competing with Peter for a permanent staff job at the Daily Bugle, who eventually becomes the symbiotic villlain, Venom. He is even less used than Church. The script leaves him very little room to even become an important element until the climax.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays iconic Spidey girl, Gwen Stacy. She's sweet, charming, pretty....and pointless. She is an object of Eddie Brock's affections, but this is only mentioned in ONE brief scene between them. She is simply a plot device to make MJ needlessly jealous. A darn shame, because Howard was ten times more likable than Dunst's MJ.

The supporting cast like Aunt May and Jonah Jameson unsurprisingly have less screen time, but are still solid in what they are given to work with. Especially Aunt May, when she lectures Peter over the evils of revenge.

The whole symbiote storyline was also excess baggage. Just look at how the symbiote is introduced. It falls from the sky, and randomly decides to hitch a ride on Peter's scooter. Why?

The movie was supposed to be the darkest of the trilogy as it dealt with the whole theme of revenge. But it actually has more cheesy jokes, campiness, and off color jokes than the other two movies.

But a lot of this was down to Sony, as they saddled Sam Raimi with characters that he didn't want to use: The symbiote storyline, Eddie Brock, and Gwen Stacy. I give him points for doing the best he could in a difficult situation.

The movie has it's merits, but unfortunately the bad out weighs the good. But it's not nearly as awful as Batman and Robin or some of the other woeful comic book flicks it often gets unfairly compared to.