If you read this blog you may know I tend to write more about movies I don’t like, and unfortunately, this is going to be a long entry. I watched Spider-Man 3 tonight, and I really looked forward to it. I’ve been waiting to see Venom since they announced the first movie. I’ll split the review into several sections covering the different parts of the movie. Spoilers ahead, of course.
Harry’s threat
After Peter and Harry’s initial battle, Harry suffers from amnesia, he regains his memory and resumes his vengeance trip against Parker by leaving Mary Jane with the dilemma of ending her relationship with Peter if she wants him to survive. This makes for a ridiculous scene in which MJ tear-eyed breaks up with Peter, and then continues working at a jazz bar like nothing has happened. Now, why the hell didn’t she just tell Peter about the threat, she knows he can look out for himself, and she doesn’t at all seem traumatized about the fact that her former boyfriend and long-time friend Harry is suddenly a psychotic fruitcake. Useless sub-story that isn’t even brought up later in the movie.
Parker and the symbiote
So, Peter gets infected with the symbiote and his behaviour starts changing. How can you see this? He gets a fucking emo hair-due. It’s true, if you look up ’emo’ at WikiPedia, this is what you get:
See that hair? That’s how Peter Parker looks when he’s a bad guy. Also, he doesn’t act like the arrogant, spiteful asshole you would expect, yeah sure, he tries to kill Harry and Marko, but what then? He strolls down the street like some over-confident schmuck waving at girls and dancing, then he takes Gwen Stacy to the bar where Mary Jane works, to make her jealous, and dances some more, after playing a perfect piece on a piano (yes, a ‘wtf’ is in place). The scenes are retarded, and end with Peter suddenly realizing he’s acting like an idiot, when he accidently shoves Mary Jane. Oh really, shoving her did the trick, but breaking her heart by dancing with Gwen and trying to kill his best friend didn’t? Right.
Also, there’s a minor detail about the symbiot that bugged me; in the movie it’s portrayed as if the symbiot has taken over the suit, since it’s become black, and not Peter, since he’s able to take it off. But why does he have to struggle with it in the church? I know it has gripped onto him, it’s just poorly presented.
Harry’s retarded butler and the ending
Apparently the Osborns have a butler in their mansion, I’ve never seen him in any of the movies, and as you find out in the end, he’s just in the movie to make Harry realize that Peter didn’t kill his father, because the idiotic butler apparently noticed cut marks from the glider (Parker couldn’t have used the glider to kill Norman? Oh well, nevermind) on Harry’s father’s corpse! WELL, MAYBE YOU SHOULD’VE TOLD HIM THAT BEFORE HE FUCKING WENT ON A KILLING SPREE YOU! Goddamnit, it’s so stupid I can’t even explain it.
Naturally Harry goes to help Peter in the final battle against Sandman and Venom, eventually ending up saving Peter and dying himself by jumping in front of his glider, thrown by Venom at Peter. Aftwards you have the typical sunset scene in which Mary Jane and Peter are kneeling at Harry as he dies, and then Sandman explains that his killing of Ben was an accident, and Peter forgives him. ‘Cliché’ doesn’t even cover it.
Coincidences
There are a lot of weird coincidences in Spider-Man 3, it seems like they couldn’t really figure out a proper way to explain some parts, or maybe they just didn’t have enough time, the movie is pretty cramped together as it is. Anyway, we have the symbiot conviniently landing (with no further explanation) right next to Peter and Mary Jane, and Flint Marko just so happens to stumble upon an unguarded and unmonitored particle accelerator (happens all the time), the scientists do notice some changes to the contents of the reactor, but “it’s probably just a bird”. Now, come on. Not only would a particle accelerator be locked up, INSIDE, it would also be guarded by something more than a damn fence. And it doesn’t even have any cameras near it. What are they doing with it anyway? Lastly we have Eddie Brock walking into the exact same church as Peter, pff.
Villains
As mentioned I looked forward to Venom, and he looks cool, but they should’ve changed his voice, maybe not all the time, but definitely when he’s transformed all the way, Topher Grace’s skinny voice doesn’t really make the evil appearance terrifying enough, especially if you remember it from ‘That ’70s Show’. Sandman was cool as well, incredible CGI, cool battles, but my prefered villain in Spider-Man 3 is the New Goblin. Nice outfit, exciting fights, and, contrary to Eddie’s motives, you can understand why Harry wants Peter dead.
Misc
If the cliché ending wasn’t enough; we also have a scene of Spidey jumping past a huge American flag before entering the final battle. Similar scenes (in the endings) almost ruined the previous movies for me, and it’s repulsive in this movie as well. Why do they have to compare Peter’s fight to some sort of American patriotism in such an obvious, disgusting way? Like we don’t see enough over-patriotic Americans already.
Lastly, the pace of the movie is simply too fast, three villains with seperate stories in top of Parker’s own battle with Mary Jane and the suit, it’s just too much, and unfortunately, it makes the stories seem rushed with missing details. The final battle is over way too quick, Sandman just stops fighting when Harry fires missiles at him and Venom is easily destroyed by a pumpkin grenade while it’s vunerable because of Peter making a lot of noise.
5/10.