The final Spider-Man 3 review!

After two long posts, two viewings and two days to digest, here is my final review of Spider-Man 3.

DISCLAIMER: This following is one mans opinion. One very important man, ME! You are of course entirely entitled to your own opinion. However, if your opinion is that you don't like Spider-Man or wish to jump on a "let's all hate the new movie" bandwagon. Then this mans opinion is that you can kindly go to hell.

Sam Raimi probably wasn't the most obvious choice to direct a super-hero movie. Known for B-movie classics like the Evil Dead trilogy, he would probably be one of the last people you would think of to helm such a huge project. And let's face it, screwing up the Spider-Man movies seemed like something that was inevitable. Especially if you had heard some of the casting choices James Cameron (who was previously tied to the project) had put out there. The premise was just too hard to translate, and it's not like there were any really great super-hero movies to take cues from when making a movie of this type. Sure Tim Burton's Batman was good, and the original Superman movies had some charm (but lacked super-villains) but neither of them had been completely successful in capturing the comic books from which they were based.

I'm sure most people expected the first Spider-Man movie to be average at best. But Spider-Man 1 wasn't average was it? No, it was awesome! Sam Raimi was not only a fan of the comic book, but he actually understood the characters. Amazingly he was able to bring them to life on screen in a way that seemed impossible, with the help of some fantastic casting of course. Tobey Maguire was the perfect Peter Parker. I was so afraid that the movie Peter Parker would be too much of a classic hero. But thanks to Sam and Tobey he's just like the Peter from the early comic books. A nerd and a dork, but Tobey sells both the lovableness and heroism that seemed impossible to translate onto the big screen. The only thing I didn't like about Spider-Man 1 was the Power Ranger style Green Goblin outfit. But that was such a small issue I let it go before the movie even came out.

Spider-Man 2 took everything that was great about the first movie and improved upon it. For me Spider-Man 2 is one of the greatest movies of all time. It hits all the right chords, humor, morality, excitement, characters that I not only identify with but truly care for and the action was everything it should have been. These scenes were the realization of things that I had dreamed about since I was a small child. In fact my earliest memory is my mother buying me a stuffed Spider-Man from an outdoor market at the age of 3, a toy that I still own to this day. On a side note, the recent release of Spider-Man 2.1 is the cream on this cake, a cut that besides one scene (the new slightly inferior elevator scene) improves on the original with 8 minutes of additional material.

Which brings me to the final movie in the Spider-Man trilogy. Going into this movie it seemed that it was not possible for it surpass the perfection of Spider-Man 2, and I can safely say with remorse that it does not. However let me be clear from the start that Spider-Man 3 is still a great movie. And in my opinion, still one of the greatest super-hero movies ever brought to the big screen (it doesn't have huge competition). But with that said it does not reach the heights of it's predecessors.

I am going to presume that anyone reading this is either already aware of the basic story of the the movie or has already seen it, but either way be prepared for no plot explanation, but some spoilers.

Although many will want to concentrate on the maybe 7.52% (that's an estimation) of this movie that isn't very good, it really should be noted that the largest portion of this movie is truly great. The movie is funnier than the previous two (something some people didn't like) and the finality of the 3 part morality tale that Sam Raimi has woven (with the help of many other great people) really does deserve some serious applause. The first movie gave us a tale about power and responsibility, the second sacrifice for the greater good and the third forgiveness. This is a very important point because the reason the Spider-Man movies are so far above all other Super-hero movies is because of these themes. The Spider-Man character has been so popular because he deals with the human condition and the struggle between right and wrong without invoking fairy tales or framing things in black and white ideology. And more importantly Peter Parker has to contend with the most important aspect of these struggles, dealing with normal day to day life. He is the every-man who feels that the world is sometimes against him but allows his overwhelming belief in right and wrong to guide him through all his choices, no matter how hard those choices are.

These core element all remain in Spider-Man 3, and the story of Peter's journey to the dark side and back again is something that we can all identify with on a more basic level. In fact everything that you loved about the first two is also in this movie, that is except a fully coherent villain story. You see as great as Peter's story is, the movie suffers from too many coincidences in order to tell the story, and these are almost all in the villain story-lines. These are not so bad on there own but coupled with a few clunky scenes designed to move the story to its conclusion and you have a movie that stutters where it should soar. Now many of these issues can be overlooked by the fact that you are watching a movie about a guy that gets super powers from a genetically enhanced spider. And many of them were actually lifted directly from the pages of the comic book. But the first two movies did not make these mistakes and if the offending scenes had just a little foreshadowing they would have worked much better than they actually did.

Although when aiming any criticisms at this movie something that should not be overlooked or passed on to Sam Raimi (or his brother Ivan and Alvin Sargent whom co-wrote it with him) are the problems with the music by Christopher Young, who replaced Danny Elfman on the movie. For me Christopher Young failed to hit the right emotional marks with his music. Many of the pieces were fine in and of themselves, the melancholy pieces were great for instance. But whenever the music went into hero or villain mode it just wasn't as subtle as Elfman's work and felt more jarring than I think they it should have been. It just never invokes the goosebumps that Elfman's soundtrack did for me. Add to this some horrible musical transitions and you leave the audience feeling that the movie was paced badly, which for the most part it was not.

There is also one scene that just felt really so forced and clumsy, the butlers speech with Harry. For those that have seen the movie, I have no doubt you are now saying "god yes". For those that haven't you will soon be saying "oh god no" at the scene when you do see it. That single scene is Raimi's worst work in a movie, in my opinion.


However as I say it is far easier to nit pick than it is to convey all the wonderful things in this movie. J. Jonah Jameson has some of his greatest scenes of the three movies and my favourite line of his, "Miss Brant! That wasn't the position I hired you for!".

The evil/emo Peter Parker is hilarious as his dork turned smooth-player ends up being dorkier than normal Peter was. I loved every moment of the evil Peter scenes except maybe the jazz bar part, that was a little too much and "The Mask-esque" for me.

The Sandman looked incredible, and I while I have a big problem with the retcon of being Uncle Ben's killer, I do think it was handled well and certainly not as bad as some of the retcon stuff done in the comics. Topher Grace was great, very funny as the moral-free jerk, the ying to Peter's yang as it were. And as a Spider-Man fan that thinks Venom is good but overrated, I thought this movie had the perfect amount of that character in it. Neither villain felt fully developed but this is a movie about Peter Parker, Mary Jane, Harry Osborn and more than anything else forgiveness.

Both times I saw the movie the audience was full of people laughing out loud throughout and more importantly crying (and all in the right places), including fully grow men (and not just me). Which just goes to show how well these movies are made, how many other Super-hero movies can bring people to tears? Batman and Robin doesn't count.

Overall I give the movie a B+.

So as someone who is a huge fan and hasn't missed a core issue of Spider-Man in over 10 years (and have read many more than that), I am very protective of the franchise. And I think these movies are very faithful to the comic books, especially in the area's that matter the most to me. And I can safely say that I am very happy with the Spider-Man trilogy. It exceeded any expectation that I dared to have. I can only hope that 4, 5 and 6 are of a similar quality. I really hope that the entire cast and more importantly Sam Raimi sticks around for the rest of this journey.