Spider-man 3 (now including reviews so beware of possible spoilers)

[Teleku]

Minor Spoilers:



Went and saw it at the local theater a few nights ago.  Overall, I liked it, but I would have to say I liked the first 2 better.  It was  just marred by having some horrendously corny scenes and dialog at points.  The story also felt a bit rushed, with them trying to jam in so many plot points.  I also didn't really like the implementation of black suit.  Peter pretty much gained absolutely no power by using it.  It just felt good, and made him evil.  It didn't have any of the advantages it had in the comic, which makes you wonder why he kept bothering to put it on (they also treated it just like a suit he took on and off like his normal.....).

I think they did a good job with venom's look, though they left out the tongue.  The character was kind of shallow with this incarnation, because they didn't really explain exactly why it became venom when Brock got covered by the suit, or any of the other back story to it.  He is just mad at peter, gets covered by the ooze, and now has lots of teeth and is violent....

Having said all that, it was still entertaining, and the action sequences were really well done.  I felt this one did an excellent job of really showing the type of fighting spiderman can do.

[HaemishM]

but there's a reason I don't really follow Spidey comics.  His character is defined largely by the fact that he's always going through a lot of shit.  People can identify with that.  The problem is, you can only really take watching so much of it.  Another movie with Peter and MJ working through their relationship problems would just be too much. 

That's always been my problem with Spider-Man as well. He's never sure of himself, never stops whining about his problems, even during the middle of the fight. It irritates me. I can handle it in the movies because it's 2 hours, but in the comics it's every month and I just lose interest.

I've had no problems with Dunst as MJ, though I'd have liked to have seen the Gwen Stacy arc too. But you know, it never would have worked in a movie, because Gwen would have died at the beginning of the first one and that's a shitload more grim than the ending they had with "I can't be with MJ."

Three movies really seems to be about the point where most movie franchises should stop. If you need more than that, do a TV show.

[Margalis]

Some random points.

First, I dressed up as Spider-Man for halloween in 5th grade.

Second, for me Spider-Man jumped the shark when he got married. MJ has always been a drag on the storyline when used in large doses. Because Spider-Man is largely about his personal issues, they had to give her a prominent role once married, but they neve had anything for her to do. Her storylines were always lame - she is getting stalked or threatened or abducted, blah blah blah. Married life just ain't that interesting.

They should have had Spider-Man and MJ just divorce after a couple of years. We love each other but being married to a Super-Hero just sucks too much. It's like shows like Moonlighting and Lois and Clark - once the tension is over and the couple hooks up for real it is all downhill.

Third, Venom's whole doesn't harm innocents thing just sort of appeared one day without explanation. It began as sort of tongue-in-cheek, the first time he used the line was right after he killed a cop by suffocating him with his suit IIRC. But then somehow it became a serious part of the character.

Fourth, the interesting thing about Venom is really the suit itself. It has a sort of love/hate relationship with Peter. It is essentially a jilted lover - hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Eddie Brock may have wanted to kill Peter but the suit just wanted to be taken back.

[Ironwood]

The irony being that it couldn't have him back, both metaphorically and literally.

Jilted indeed.

See, when it was about the suit, Venom wasn't that bad.  It's when it became about the overused fanboy wank that it got awful.  And having 6 fucking symbiontes running around in some kind of evil power team was just dreadful.

[schild]

I just came back from a sweet snuff film.

Sam Raimi just put a bullet in the head of one of the most beloved movie series of all time.

[Evil Elvis]

The cock of the walk strut was kinda funny for the first minute.  Christ, they dragged that scene on forever.  The lounge bar scene was just painful.  And Raimi needs to stop giving Bruce Campbell cameos; he upstages everyone else in seconds.

Sandman killing Ben was stupid.  Venom didn't ruin shit (as expected), but there was no meat to him/it either.  The rest of it was par for the course for Spider-Man movies.  The only scene that grabbed me a little was when they were in the sewers and Spiderman was climbing on top of the ceiling stalking sandman.  It had that dark, Kraven's Last Hunt vibe that I dug.

[Velorath]

I just came back from a sweet snuff film.

Sam Raimi just put a bullet in the head of one of the most beloved movie series of all time.

Care to elaborate on why you thought so?

[ahoythematey]

Too much camp and comical presentation rearing it's ugly head.  See Batman Forever/Batman and Robin for examples.  They should have quit at Spider-Man 2 if this was the best they could do.

[Velorath]

Too much camp and comical presentation rearing it's ugly head.

You have seen the other two movies in the series right?

[ahoythematey]

For both, yes.  If you were being snarky and saying Batman and Batman Returns were both too campy and comical, I have no idea how to retort.  If you were saying Spider-Man 1 and 2 were also campy and comical, to that I say: there is a fine line and I feel Spider-Man 3 crossed too far over that line too many times to make it work like the previous two (may) have.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the movie and by no means am I wanting to see it crash and burn like Batman and Robin, but I feel like it really fell short of the marks 1 & 2 hit, which is depressing because all the same talent is here except for maybe Elfman's score.

[Velorath]

For both, yes.  If you were being snarky and saying Batman and Batman Returns were both too campy and comical, I have no idea how to retort.  If you were saying Spider-Man 1 and 2 were also campy and comical, to that I say: there is a fine line and I feel Spider-Man 3 crossed too far over that line too many times to make it work like the previous two (may) have.

I was referring to Spider-man.  I don't think 3 crossed any further over than the first two movies did.  Dafoe's performance as the Green Goblin in the first movie was almost pure camp (I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong).  The whole "raindrops keep fallin on my head" sequence in number 2 was about as long as the scenes with evil Peter strutting down the sidewalk in 3 and I don't think was any more disruptive to the movie (most people seem to enjoy that part for whatever that's worth).  Other than that, I don't recall too much in the way of camp or comedy in 3 (and mind you, as a Spider-man movie, a character who is supposed to be one of the most humorous in comics, I don't think that they even put enough focus on comedy).

[ahoythematey]

Don't really know what to say beyond "different strokes" and all that.  Maybe it's a factor of too many villains and whatnot, I don't know...

Oh, and I loved Dafoe's performance apart from that one effing line in the bridge fight.  Molina was great too.

[Venkman]

Christ, they dragged that scene on forever. 

This has been my growing problem with Raimi across these movies. There were a mere handful of scenes in 1 that I'd need to fast forward through if I saw it more than once or twice a year. There are a whole bunch more in 2 that I can't sit through even now, years after I first watched it. There were a fucking lot of stretches in movie I saw four hours ago I didn't even bother sitting through the first time seeing it. The action sequences were good, the flitting-around-city stuff the usual CGI tripe, and the underlying story sorta ok. I always like the misunderstood villain thing. But what killed this movie for me, as in I'll-never-bother-watching-again sorta way is the emotional crap.

He doesn't do emotional sequences well. I think it hurts that Toby and Kirsten have zero chemistry. But ya only need to look so far as Peter talking to amnesiac-Harry, or Aunt May, or his Uncle talking to the two different forms Sandman's character took (pre-Sandman) to realize the root cause is the Directing. These are laborious boring sequences that someone good at this sort of thing would handle so much better. I think about love-interest/triangle stuff and/or emotional scenes from other comic/action movies striving for appreciable depth, like Batman Begins, or X-men 1/2, and so on. THEY handle it well by maximizing the message delivered in as little time as possible.

Spiderman 2 could have been 30 minutes shorter. 3 could have been at LEAST that too. It's almost like when SW Ep 3 came out and my buddy and I realized we could take the entire series, edit it down to a single 2 hour movie, and even as rank amateurs produce a better story. Speaking of which, James Franco as Anakin would have been soooo much better. I've felt that since Spider 1. He seems to have more range even when not adequately directed.

What Sam needs to do is what GL should have done: sub out the direction of parts they just aren't good at handling.

No, I'm not a professional critic. No, I couldn't make one better myself. Yes, I'm paying for it though and I'll be avoiding the next Spiderman movie if Raimi is doing it.

[Johny Cee]

That's always been my problem with Spider-Man as well. He's never sure of himself, never stops whining about his problems, even during the middle of the fight. It irritates me. I can handle it in the movies because it's 2 hours, but in the comics it's every month and I just lose interest.

The whining and constant day-to-day problems are why Spider-Man is such a popular character,  and one that I still have fond memories of reading years after I've stopped following comics.

He's worried about making rent,  his job, has realistic lady troubles, he's conflicted.  Peter sacrifices so much to put on the costume.  It adds a huge amount of reality,  and really grounds the character.

I could never get too far into most other hero books because,  mostly,  it was just one ridiculous thing on top of another.  There was nothing to identify with on a personal level.  Look at the Xmen, for instance.  No money or "real world" troubles.  Outrageous plots (oh, Wolvering has to kill a clan of ninjas who may or may not have trained him at one point?  ummm...  The US government secretly creates hugely powerful robots on a mission of genocide, instead of deploying them against the USSR or it's proxies? huh? Wierdo timeline shit again?)

The only other book I have very fond memories of is Silver Surfer,  but that's because it was soooo wacked out.  The Surfer also was a depressed romantic/idealist type who kept getting run against problems,  which made it fun.

[Johny Cee]

By the way,  I think Lowell (I refuse to learn his real name) made the Sandman character.  Sandman had few scenes and fewer lines,  and could have been an entirely one note throwaway.  Instead he really projected the air of an unlucky blue collar guy making bad choice after bad choice,  and not really sure how he got so far from his original intentions.

The Sandman cgi was overdone.

I'd love to see Marvel take the Sandman into his own movie, with a redemption plot line....

[Merusk]

Schild said it best.

I found myself actually vocalizing, "Oh god this is awful." During that horrible, "I'm the man" series of scenes.  I've no real desire to see it again, and I kept thinking, "When is this going to be over so I can piss."

The movie really tried to do way too much, as I feared.  Too much was happening without any real depth or urgency.  The plot holes/ unexplained crap that was all over the place didn't help, either.  Like... Spidey can lift trucks, but can't break Venom's webbing - when said webbing was already shown not being able to support a taxi on its own.

Harry.. why did you run in front of Venom, then stand there like a fruit loop. You had no problems smacking Pete out of the air so how about a flying tackle instead, hay?

And yes, I wanted to bitch slap the butler.


Darniaq - Funny you mentioned that about Franco as Anakin. I was thinking the exact same thing as I watched him. I think he could have even pulled off the same bullshit lines that Church got without turning into whiny bitch-boy.

[Special J]

Saw it last night and I pretty well concur with most of the reviews here.  It was OK but it tried to do too much and there were some incredibly corny bits.

Did this movie REALLY need a dance nunber?

I wanted to gag when their idea of 'evil' Peter included an emo hairdo.

It wasn't codpieces and nipples, but I fear the direction this franchise has headed.

[Triforcer]

Saw it last night and I pretty well concur with most of the reviews here.  It was OK but it tried to do too much and there were some incredibly corny bits.

Did this movie REALLY need a dance nunber?

I wanted to gag when their idea of 'evil' Peter included an emo hairdo.

It wasn't codpieces and nipples, but I fear the direction this franchise has headed.

Just saw it.  Jesus, I thought I was fucking KIDDING when I made the Batman and Robin reference a few days ago in this thread.  I never used to believethe fundamentalist conspiracy about Hollywood being dominated by the gay agenda, but wtf is with the tendency for superhero sequels to turn to self-referential camp?   

[tazelbain]

A profundly medicre movie with a really shitty middle.  Turning Peter into a clown to get some cheep laughs, I guess Hollywood can't help but turn gold into to shit.

[Tannhauser]

Saw it today, to a packed house.  Good movie with some lame moments.  They tried to pack too much stuff in but it kept my interest.  Doesn't beat Spidey 2, they need to get that writer back for S4.  Poor Dunst looks like a bag of antlers compared to DBH as Gwen Stacy. Me rikey!

Raimi has got Jackson Disease. the inability to edit a movie down and avoid the big budget bloat.

[Kitsune]

It was the least of the three movies, but it was still okay.

As for 'spiderman's too conflicted and whiny', Straczynski has thankfully been writing that out of him lately.  After Civil War ended, Peter got good and pissed off and didn't bother with even wearing a costume while throwing jeeps into second-story windows and beating the shit out of people.  The justification for his wearing the (non-Venom) black costume again is that he's mildly displeased with the world's treatment of him and decided to crack bones rather than whine.  Of course, that's just in the good writing.  Bendis still has him bouncing around like a retard and spewing stupid one-liners like nothing happened.

God I hate Bendis so much.

[Ironwood]

I wanted to read Spiderman again after Civil War (Only to find out how the 'not secret anymore' shit impacted) but I actually can't bring myself to read anything Marvel after Civil War.   It was that bad.

[Kitsune]

Believe me, I agree with you.  Straczynski is doing a good job of keeping the torch burning, however.  Whedon is doing a great job with X-Men and Runaways, and Ennis is doing a fucking fantastic Punisher that's as gritty and dark as Castle deserves to be.  Planet Hulk was good, and if they somehow grow the balls to kill Stark, I'll buy the World War Hulk line just to have that comic.  Everything else Marvel is crap.

But long story short, Peter wound up running into a lot of trouble thanks to the 'not a secret' thing, at which point he got angry enough to start behaving like a man who can bench-press cars ought to be behaving when people give him a lot of shit.

At least, in his own comic.  The one by Straczynski.  In the other two Spider-Man comics as well as the rest of the Marvel universe, he's still a giant pussy.  Apparently one of the other Spider-Man comics has him running into a clone of Uncle Ben from the future.  A clone.  Of Uncle Ben.  From the future.

And one of my friends wonders why all the kids seem to be flocking to manga and ignoring US comics nowadays.  Answer: Stupid shit like this and such horrible editors that a character can be going through massive life changes in a comic but show no hint of it having happened in the others.

[Velorath]

Believe me, I agree with you.  Straczynski is doing a good job of keeping the torch burning, however. 

If you ignore the two arcs he did (or three if you want to include The Other) that were some of the shittiest stories in Spider-man history.

[Special J]

A clone.  Of Uncle Ben.  From the future.

Egad.

For every good story you get dumb shit like this that drags everything down.

[Ironwood]

Actually, I thought they couldn't do worse than the original Clone saga, until I read the Ultimate SM Clone Saga.

OMG.  New meaning to the word 'useless'.

[HaemishM]

Believe me, I agree with you.  Straczynski is doing a good job of keeping the torch burning, however. 

If you ignore the two arcs he did (or three if you want to include The Other) that were some of the shittiest stories in Spider-man history.

Yes. I haven't actually like much of any of the JMS Spidey stuff. He's done one good thing with Spidey, he's gotten me to not hate Aunt May. Everything else about his Spidey run I could just as soon forget. He seemed to be going for way too much of the Spidey as Elemental Avatar shit that ruined the Firestorm character years ago. The Civil War shit just interrupted all that, which in turn made it seem like all that stuff was just throwaway bullshit, and now we're into dark and brooding black costume Spidey, which just NEVER WORKS. And let's not forget he gave us the "GWEN STACY FUCKED NORMAN OSBORN AND HAD HIS LOVE CHILDREN" shit that seriously should have gotten JMS slapped with a herring.

Also, Spidey's rogue's gallery after 1982 BLOWS MONKEY ASS.

[Kitsune]

Whenever Straczynski has done something godawful, it's been because the Marvel higher-ups told him to do it, or at least that's what I've heard.  They made him give Spidey the stupid metal suit, made him have Peter think it was a good idea to take off the mask, made him have Gwen's children be from Osborn instead of Peter.  You can't really blame the writer for the editors being a pack of retards.

In exchange, JMS has made Mary Jane and Aunt May not suck, a first.  I enjoyed his attempts to inch Spider-Man more towards a mystical origin than a scientific one, though it would've been nicer if he'd had the time to glean some actual, tangible results from it instead of the occasional astral journey.  I wasn't even unhappy about the whole dying and coming back thing, though again, the ramifications of that never had the chance to be explored.

[Margalis]

It seems that superhero stuff often falls into the too many characters trap in later ventures.

Batman, X-Men, the Super-Man and Justice League cartoons, etc. I understand the desire to include more and more comic-book world stuff in these things but it an be too much for the audience.

[Riggswolfe]

I enjoyed it, though like most I think it was the least of the 3 movies. In particular I enjoyed seeing Harry's story arc concluded though I wish they could have done it without the butler exposition. My preference would have been to have the "ghost" Norman have the butler's words in some non-cheesy way.

My gut feeling tells me that since they thought it was the last they wanted to bring everyone's arcs to a close and throw in as many nods to the comic as they could and they ended up putting too much stuff in. Honestly, they should have dropped the Sandman and made Harry the primary villain until the end of the movie.

[Tannhauser]

I would just like to tell the Hollywood writers and producers to RELAX.  Spidey has about 50 years of stories, no need to cram them in all in.  Just pick a villain.  ONE.  And tell his story along with Spidey's.  S2 was good for one reason because Doc Ock was so well detailed and he dove-tailed into Peter's life so nicely.  If they are indeed gonna make 3 more movies I hope they get great writers and tell interesting, powerful stories mixed in with superhero hijinx.

Just no Spidey-nipples I beg you. 

[Velorath]

The rest of these were just kind of amusing but this one was pretty funny.

[Ironwood]

Heh.  Yeah, that puts it in context.

[Velorath]

Sometimes it's hard to feel sorry for Peter.





Very tasteful Marvel.

[HaemishM]

Wow, what a bunch of wankers.