← Back to Reviews
in
#541 - Spider-Man 3
Sam Raimi, 2007
A superhero with spider-like powers is forced to juggle crime-fighting with his personal life, which is complicated by the appearance of an alien parasite.
Though I didn't exactly hate the first two Spider-Man movies, the unfortunate reputation that got attached to the third film was definitely enough to keep me away for the better part of a decade. Of course, as with so many of the films on this list, morbid curiosity eventually led to me to check out the much-maligned Spider-Man 3. Unfortunately, this film definitely lives up (or down) to its rather unforgiving reputation. The plot once again revolves around Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) trying to balance out his secret identity as the friend neighbourhood web-slinger with his increasingly strained relationship with Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), whose own career as a Broadway singer is floundering. The personal conflict is only exacerbated by the arrival of three new villainous threats. First, there's Peter and Mary-Jane's old friend Harry Osborn (James Franco), who has made it his mission to murder Spider-Man in revenge for killing his father, the original Green Goblin. Second, there's a recently-escaped ex-con (Thomas Haden Church) with a link to Peter's past who stumbles into a dangerous experiment that grants him sand-based powers. Last (but not least), there's an alien parasite that arrives on a meteorite and threatens to infect Peter for the worst.
Even with the intention of giving Spider-Man 3 the benefit of the doubt, I still found it a largely lacklustre film. A lot of that has to do with the length - I know that the current trend with superhero movies is to have them pass the two-hour mark by a significant margin, but that only seems to work if the film can find decent material to fill out such a prolonged running time. To this end, Spider-Man 3 makes the mistake of focusing far too much on the non-action material, which wouldn't be so bad if said material wasn't so weak. The entire sub-plot where Peter is infected with the alien parasite has become notorious thanks to his awkwardly unfunny appearance and actions, but even its ridiculous nature is slightly preferable to the more boring sub-plots that permeate the film, whether it's Peter and Mary-Jane's relationship problems or the ways in which they are complicated by the presence of Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Harry. Speaking of Harry, he doesn't prove too much of a threat as he more or less recycles the same villain from the first film, hence why the film tries to over-compensate by introducing not one but two more villains. Church's villain is a mixed bag; though his introduction to Spider-Man's narrative is redundant at best and his vaguely redemptive motivation feels very standard, Church is good enough to sell it all reasonably well. The same can't really be said for the third villain, who is sold as a pretty typical dark/evil counterpart to the hero, which is a shame considering how poorly handled the hero is in this film.
Raimi's capacity for extremely vibrant and dynamic visuals has resulted in his Evil Dead trilogy becoming some of my all-time favourite movies, and it is that same capacity that at least makes the film's awfully sporadic lapses into blockbuster thrills look competent enough to compensate for the relative weakness of the CGI involved. That's about the only real upside to a superhero film that isn't a major travesty but still has next to nothing to recommend about it. For the most part, Spider-Man 3 plays out like an especially weak soap opera that only occasionally references the fact that it's about superheroes. Superhero films that have already moved past the origin-story phase may have more narrative freedom but that just means that they struggle to fill it out, and in a film as long as this one it certainly does struggle. It'd be one thing to just be boring but the ways in which it fills out its running time are especially goofy, especially the sequence of events where Peter is infected with an evil parasite. I'm hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone except comic-book completionists - even people who are just looking for a lightweight diversion will struggle to find much to like about this rather dire excuse for an action blockbuster.
Sam Raimi, 2007
A superhero with spider-like powers is forced to juggle crime-fighting with his personal life, which is complicated by the appearance of an alien parasite.
Though I didn't exactly hate the first two Spider-Man movies, the unfortunate reputation that got attached to the third film was definitely enough to keep me away for the better part of a decade. Of course, as with so many of the films on this list, morbid curiosity eventually led to me to check out the much-maligned Spider-Man 3. Unfortunately, this film definitely lives up (or down) to its rather unforgiving reputation. The plot once again revolves around Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) trying to balance out his secret identity as the friend neighbourhood web-slinger with his increasingly strained relationship with Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), whose own career as a Broadway singer is floundering. The personal conflict is only exacerbated by the arrival of three new villainous threats. First, there's Peter and Mary-Jane's old friend Harry Osborn (James Franco), who has made it his mission to murder Spider-Man in revenge for killing his father, the original Green Goblin. Second, there's a recently-escaped ex-con (Thomas Haden Church) with a link to Peter's past who stumbles into a dangerous experiment that grants him sand-based powers. Last (but not least), there's an alien parasite that arrives on a meteorite and threatens to infect Peter for the worst.
Even with the intention of giving Spider-Man 3 the benefit of the doubt, I still found it a largely lacklustre film. A lot of that has to do with the length - I know that the current trend with superhero movies is to have them pass the two-hour mark by a significant margin, but that only seems to work if the film can find decent material to fill out such a prolonged running time. To this end, Spider-Man 3 makes the mistake of focusing far too much on the non-action material, which wouldn't be so bad if said material wasn't so weak. The entire sub-plot where Peter is infected with the alien parasite has become notorious thanks to his awkwardly unfunny appearance and actions, but even its ridiculous nature is slightly preferable to the more boring sub-plots that permeate the film, whether it's Peter and Mary-Jane's relationship problems or the ways in which they are complicated by the presence of Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Harry. Speaking of Harry, he doesn't prove too much of a threat as he more or less recycles the same villain from the first film, hence why the film tries to over-compensate by introducing not one but two more villains. Church's villain is a mixed bag; though his introduction to Spider-Man's narrative is redundant at best and his vaguely redemptive motivation feels very standard, Church is good enough to sell it all reasonably well. The same can't really be said for the third villain, who is sold as a pretty typical dark/evil counterpart to the hero, which is a shame considering how poorly handled the hero is in this film.
Raimi's capacity for extremely vibrant and dynamic visuals has resulted in his Evil Dead trilogy becoming some of my all-time favourite movies, and it is that same capacity that at least makes the film's awfully sporadic lapses into blockbuster thrills look competent enough to compensate for the relative weakness of the CGI involved. That's about the only real upside to a superhero film that isn't a major travesty but still has next to nothing to recommend about it. For the most part, Spider-Man 3 plays out like an especially weak soap opera that only occasionally references the fact that it's about superheroes. Superhero films that have already moved past the origin-story phase may have more narrative freedom but that just means that they struggle to fill it out, and in a film as long as this one it certainly does struggle. It'd be one thing to just be boring but the ways in which it fills out its running time are especially goofy, especially the sequence of events where Peter is infected with an evil parasite. I'm hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone except comic-book completionists - even people who are just looking for a lightweight diversion will struggle to find much to like about this rather dire excuse for an action blockbuster.