Spiderman 3.

CAUTION: I may, accidentally, give away a few spoilers in the following post. So, if you've not yet been fortunate enough to view Spiderman 3, I recommend that you hold off on reading this post until you have. You have been warned. Abandon Hope All Ye Who . . . yeah, you get it.

Okay, so, as you've probably guessed from the title, tonight I saw Spiderman 3. I've been waiting, patiently, for over 3 years to see this movie, last night I watched the first two iterations so that I could suitably psyche myself up enough to see the thrid movie in the proper light. The whole day today I've had a one-track mind, and I'll give you one guess as to the track.

Good Guess.

I got weird looks as I rode the bus to town. Apparently randomly giggling riders are somewhat looked down upon, who'd a thunk? The giggling didn't (or couldn't) stop for the hour and a half that I spent waiting in the theater. I was so ready for the movie that I thought nothing could possibly disappoint. I was somewhat mistaken. So, here comes my synopsis of Spiderman 3.

It's just easier to do it via character, hence the following:

Spidey: They did some good things with Spidey. They made him awestruck with his own popularity in the beginning, something that did happen in the comic. He was arrogant and inconsiderate, which does happen when one is impressed with oneself, causing me to believe that they were going to make one of the themes of the movie "selfisness is bad." That's okay, it's a little bit shallow, but you can go with that. About halfway through the movie the theme decides to switch to "you always have a choice,"and, while that's not a really bad theme either, it's just not a good idea to switch 'em. It makes 'em a little bit less powerful that way. At least, I think so. Oh, and when they gave him the emo haircut and made him dance on the street-bad. *smacks filmmaker with newspaper* Bad, No, what were you thinking?
Otherwise, Toby McGuire does an all around good job.

MJ: Actually, while I still think that Kirsten Dunst lacks the fire and energy that MJ posesses in the comics, she is starting to pull it off.

Gwen Stacey: Yes, that's right, they put Gwen into the movie. Wow. I'd be offended, but since this is attempting to create a new spider-reality, it's okay. It works. It's a little shout out to the fans, and I apreciate that. On the other hand, she really had no depth to her character at all, and she appears to exist for the one scene where emo-man dances with her. A litte more work would have been apreciated.

Harry Osborne: I found that the guy who plays Harry pulled it off pretty well. He does melodramatic things, but somehow he makes them seem genuine. A good job as Harry. But I really just don't like what they did with his costume. It really would have been better if he hadn't looked like a generic futuristic skateboarder. He could have worn a real mask, hobgoblin maybe. They could have brought the dual gliders in, really, the skateboard just didn't do it for me.

Sandman: I really liked what they did with sandman's character, and surprisingly Thomas Hayden Church (he was Lyle in George of the Jungle) does an amazingly good job at making us care for and feel for the escaped convict. He's not malignant, he's not evil, he's just a guy that acidentally got caught up in an experiment gone awry. He doesn't enjoy his powers, he doesn't revel in them, he almost appears to resent them. I like that. It adds a layer of depth to Sandman's character that I was expecting the film to lack. I'm proud of them for that. What I'm not proud of them for, however, is making him into Godzilla at the end. Honestly, when will Hollywood learn that large, hulking monsters are far less impressive than human-sized characters. If you didn't think "eees Gojirra" when you saw him at the end, you're a communist. He was way better when he just had an arm extend and knock people down, or when he turned his arm into a hammer. It's just better that way. So, character = good, CG = bad.

Eddie Brock, Venom: At first I thought that Topher Grace was just too weeny to pull of Eddy Brock, but as the movie progressed, I found myself liking a clever, slimy, sycophantic bastard far more than I would an out-of-work Jock with a camera. It worked. What was needed, on the other hand, was faaar more development into Brock's hatred of Peter Parker. Yes, Peter did get him fired, and yes, Peter had a date with Gwen. But there just wasn't enough to convince me that Brock had a deep, incurable hatred for Peter. That's an integral part of Venom's character, it's what creates Venom, and it's lack in the movie was depressing. Also, they went through all this trouble to create a slimy, sneaky character, and then they didn't show him being slimy and sneaky when he gets his black costume. A scene where he stalks Mary Jane, talks to her, maybe dates her, that would have been waaaay more impressive than just capturing here. I mean, c'mon, that happens every damn movie. She's got to be about used to it by now. I did, on the other hand, really like the venom CG. It could have used the whole double voice thing, but Venom did look like the stuff to give children nightmares, and for Venom that's a good thing.

Symbiote: I have real problems with how they did the symbiote. First of all, Deus Ex Machina aybody? "Hey baby, I love you." "I love you too." Ohp, meteor. Bam. Nothing about Jameson's son bringing it back from space. No backstory for the symbiote whatsoever. Bad. Also, you never really get the impression that the costume can't be taken off or that it enhances Spiderman's powers at all. Sure, he talks about "the power of the costume," but the audience never actually gets to see how it's enhanced him. We're just supposed to assume that it does. We're also not allowed to see that they symbiote is a completely different organism. We see it move, but so do sponges and algae. We saw it make Peter bat-shit crazy, but his relationship just broke up, so it's not solely the suit's fault. We need to know that it has a sepearte intelligence, that it controls people's thoughts and actions, but they never make that clear. Lastly, and perhaps my greatest problem, Venom never utters the phrase "we." I have so many problems with that on so many levels that I really can't even write it down. Bah.

So, I think what I feared would happen did happen. The movie just got too busy. Four superheros in a movie that's not Fantastic Four or X-Men is just a bad idea. Spiderman is a lone wolf, most of the time, and while we do get exceptions like the Sinister Six, the villans in spiderman just don't occur at the same time. I appreciate the effort at making them all awesome, but the fact remains that you just can't spend screentime making that many new, important personalities. It just dilutes them all to the point where they lose their potency. It's exactly what happened to X3, they just did too much for one movie. It aspires to greatness, but ultimately fails, rendering me sad. It had sooo much potential, they could have taken the old cartoons and just made them into a movie, that would probably have been better. So, while the movie's not bad, it just let me down. Sigh.

Butko out.