Spider-Man 3 (Raimi, 2007)
Ok, well, let me start by saying that I enjoy the Spider-Man series. I thought 1 was good and 2 was excellent. Yes, a lot of the dialogue is cheesy, but it's a comicbook series. It's based on action and stories.
Now that we got this out of the way, let me say that if this wasn't a part of the Spider-Man series then this would be on every critics bottom 10 list for the year.
I was so excited to see it, but they really took the cheesy dialogue, really lame scenes and horrible attempts to elicit emotional responses to an all time high.
By now, we all know the story. Peter Parker is a photographer with an alter-ego...he is Spider-Man. He's in love with the emotionally hard to figure out Mary Jane Watson.
Very early in the movie we get one of the 'anticipated' matchups when Harry and Peter fight. Not Spider-Man, but Peter. Harry is all done out in his father's goblin suit.
Of course this first battle ends out in a victory for Spidey. Harry takes a huge hit to the head on a bar and is knocked out and is dying. Peter gets him to a hospital where the doctors are able to save him, but he now has what could be permanent short-term memory loss. He can't remember his anger for Peter, he can't remember if he has a girlfriend or not...he pretty much only remembers up until high school.
The other 'Bad guys' are played by Thomas Haden Church, who is a character called "The Sandman" who can do amazing things after being involved in a freak accident while on the run from the police after breaking out of prison, and the other is Topher Grace who plays Venom. We'll get to him later.
Peter finds out that his grandfather's murderer was not found originally and that the convict escaped from prison is the one who did it.
With his anger growing, a black, sticky, ooze creeps on to Peter and takes over. He is now Venom. He has nothing but anger and revenge in his heart.
After a series of unfortunate events, he feels the need to get rid of the suit. He fights himself to get it off and finally does so only to have the black ooze transfer on to Peter's arch enemy from The Bugle, Edward Brock.
I can't say much more without giving away the plot, but good gosh this was bad. There are many scenes that make you cringe because of how bad the dialogue is and there are plenty of scenes that tested my gag reflex (Harry and MJ doing the twist, Peter walking down the street with a new attitude and pointing and winking at girls as he goes along, Peter doing pelvic thrusts in a men's store, Peter dancing and playing piano in a jazz bar, etc.)
Peter's Venom side is actually quite intriguing though. When he is Peter, he has an attitude. He will willingly fight people on the street without his suit. Not bad guys, he'll fight people who just plain tick him off. His edge is nice, but not really usefull except for in a couple of scenes.
The fighting scenes are good. It's your typical great action scenes for the most part. There are a
couple of times where the scenes seem like something out of Spy Kids, but that's only once or twice.
Overall, this is probably the worst comic book movie ever. Not kidding.
I'd avoid at all cost, but knowing that it's Spider-Man, I know most can't resist. They're curious and they have to know.
Well, don't say I didn't warn you...
1/10