While Spider-Man 3 is a pefectly entertaining action movie, one shouldn’t make the mistake of confusing it with a great film. Thankfully, director Sam Raimi didn’t.
The sequel is quite similar to its predecessors, so in all likelihood you already know whether you want to see it or not. (For that matter, you probably have seen it, anyway. Is this the most redundant post I’ve ever written?)
To get the flaws out of the way: The acting is pretty wooden: Kirsten Dunst’s emotional range doesn’t go much past “happy” and “sad”, and she spends much of the movie set on the latter. Tobey Maguire isn’t a heck of a lot better, but he at least gets to have some more fun in his role, as does Topher Grace’s Eddie Brock/Venom. Thomas Haden Church is good enough, but barely gets a handful of lines in the middle third. James Franco’s Harry is surprisingly effective after looking quite cardboard in the first two films, and Rosemary Harris’ Aunt May seems only to exist in order to monologue things the audience already knows. There’s very little genuine emotion on display here, but that’s not really why you’re watching Spider-Man, is it?
There’s little question the film is too full, verging on bloated. Three supervillains, two love interests, and an evil costume with accompanying personality changes are crammed into two and a half hours. Characters don’t really develop as much as they reach different stages of development: Peter is happy. Peter lets fame go to his head. Peter is angry. Peter is possessed by alien costume and makes everything worse. Peter realizes what’s going on and presses “reset personality” button. He’s very, very sorry. And so on. The plot suffers similarly, with only subplots tying the film together. While Eddie Brock’s development works quite nicely, the inevitable transformation to arch-nemesis Venom feels rushed. (Perhaps this explains it?)
There’s enough history to the franchise that this approach can still work if one remembers the character shorthand. Venom hates Spider-Man. Sandman isn’t a bad guy, but is forced into bad circumstances. Harry is kind of crazy. And so on. If you’re a big fan of the trilogy and have read enough of the comics, you’ve got enough information to fill in the blanks.
On the other hand, the true Spidey fans may take issue with some of Raimi’s liberties. Inserting the Sandman into Spidey’s origin seems like an unnecessary complication, and using Gwen Stacey (a radiant Bryce Dallas Howard) as a jealousy trap for Mary Jane doesn’t quite sit right.
On the bright side, Sam Raimi doesn’t let all this get him down. He maintains a light touch and brisk pace for most of the film, never forgetting this is still a movie about a guy wearing red and blue spandex and crawling up walls. Unlike many contemporary Marvel comics, Raimi maintains the radical belief that being a superhero should still be pretty darn fun. Even Dark Peter Parker gets to have some fun, showing off the proportional dancing ability of a spider.
Raimi makes sure the tight plot gets moments to breathe, offering up a totally gratuitous yet nonetheless satisfying Stan Lee cameo, and importing Bruce Campbell to play the most ridiculously false Frenchman since John Cleese. J.K. Simmons comes back to stomp and shout as J. Jonah Jameson, and Grace is entertainingly sleazy.
The action sequences continue to be flashy and slick, showing off the speedy and acrobatic nature of the protagonist. I am beginning to wonder, however,how many times Raimi can pull off a “Spidey catches a woman falling from a great height” sequence before it gets a little stale. The Sandman effects are surprisingly underwhelming, particularly when he assumes a gigantic form, and are often too reminiscent of Terminator 2.
Like many Hollywood sequels, Spider-Man 3 suffers excessive one-upmanship: It has to be bigger and bolder, if not better, than its predecessors. It’s not enough just to be big – this movie had to be huge. And it certainly is, though not entirely for the best. Thankfully, Sam Raimi is there to at least filter out some of the production by marketing committee which plagues many franchises. He’s not going to try something truly ambitious like Ang Lee or Bryan Singer (both of whom have their flaws), but neither has he fallen on the studio hackery sword like the Brett Ratners of the world. It’s a fairly bloated film that runs the risk of collapsing under its own weight, but Raimi keeps it moving and injects enough life into it to keep it fun and entertaining.
Spider-Man 3 might be the beginning of the end, but it’s still got Raimi keeping it alive. And while one could replace Maguire and Dunst easily enough, god help the franchise if Raimi decides it’s time to move on.