Spider-Man 3 Review

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

*** stars (out of four)
140 minutes - starts Friday, May 4th

The one thing that cannot be denied about Sam Raimi’s work on the Spider-Man series is the depth he brings to each and every character that is under his watch. Raimi grew up loving the Spider-Man universe and for him the whole series is a culmination of a lifelong dream, but he does not let his passion for his subject hinder him from building a compelling narrative set within that world. It is far too common for someone to become so passionate about something that they are a slave to its construction, and forget to make it beautiful.

Raimi gets his heightened visual style and flair from his roots as a Super-8 filmmaker. But the soul he brings to his characters comes from maturity as a storyteller. There is a visible worldview in all three of the Spider-Man films, and it is a very positive one, which makes these films genuinely unique in an ocean of visual effects blockbusters. There is genuine goodness not just in his heroes, but in almost all of his characters - almost all the villains are good people who have just taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

It is this level of detail and care for character construction that, ironically, may be “Spider-Man 3”’s biggest problem. I am not saying that the film’s depth is a bad thing. It’s just that there are so many characters that require it. Beyond Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) himself and his perennial love interest Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), there are no less than three villains to deal with, not to mention new love interest Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) and the eternally matriarchal Aunt May (Rosemary Harris). This is a movie in serious danger of overpopulation.

The story: After years of thanklessly fighting for the good of the city, Spider-Man has become a hero to all of New York, and for once in his life, things are looking up for his alter-ego Peter Parker, too. Beyond his success in web slinging, he is doing well in school and still has the love of his childhood sweetheart Mary Jane. Her career as an actress, however, is beginning to hit the skids, and her struggle leads to tension between the two young lovers, even as Peter plans on popping the question.

The first villain comes in an expected form: Harry Osborn (James Franco), who has long been awaiting his chance to take revenge on Spider-Man for the death of his father Norman, the Green Goblin. Harry dons a modified version of his father’s suit and takes to the skies in the first of the movie’s numerous bravura set pieces, a chase scene complicated by the presence of the ring Peter plans to give MJ. The development that delays Harry’s quest for revenge seems a mite far-fetched, but it’s certainly an avenue that comic book lore has exploited more than a few times in its history.

Then there’s Flint Marco (Thomas Haden Church), a petty crook who has just escaped from prison. Through a nifty little re-writing of history, it turns out he is the man who actually killed Peter’s beloved Uncle Ben (he was hijacking the car, while his partner was the guy Peter let escape). On the run from the cops, he (of course) stumbles into a testing facility and becomes molecularly transformed into pure sand, becoming the villain The Sandman, who can shift shape at will and at times become a monstrous lumbering mountain of a man. The scene where he first emerges from the sand in his new form is a simply jaw-dropping creation of special effects.

Peter, upon learning the truth about his uncle’s killer, vows revenge and shuns all other responsibilities (including Mary Jane) in pursuit of Marco. It is, of course, at this moment that a nasty alien symbiote that Peter has been unwittingly housing in his apartment decides to attach itself to his suit, turning his familiar red-and-blue costume jet black and augmenting his already impressive abilities with increased strength and agility. There is never any attempt to explain where the symbiote came from or what exactly it is, which is probably just as well - from what I can gather attempting to explain this thing took YEARS in the comics.

The suit’s real function in the story is to act as a symbol of Peter’s single-minded anger and aggression toward Marco, as the symbiote feeds off of his hatred and amplifies it, leading to a marked change in Peter’s attitude as himself, as well. The scenes where he struts down the street like a hep cat are gleefully over the top, but then, if the world’s biggest nerd suddenly decided he was going to be a bad ass, he would be pretty bad at it, wouldn’t he?

Peter has further complications on the job from the arrival of Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) a hotshot young photographer who is competing with Pete for the job of staff photographer at the Bugle. He is eerily similar to Peter in many ways, but brings a different attitude to his duties, one that Peter only matches when he is under the influence of the symbiote. Fans of the comic books know exactly where this relationship is going and what happens to Brock in the process: without spoiling too much, I will only say, it happens, and he plays a vital role in the remainder of the story.

But as I’ve spent the past six paragraphs outlining the plot and still feel like I’ve left stuff out (like how Brock is dating Gwen Stacy, and how she falls for Spider-Man, and how Harry tries to manipulate things, and how Marco has a daughter, and so on), you are beginning to see just how complicated this is. It is tempting to say the movie does too much, but I’m at a loss for what I would cut out, as there’s so much good in what they’ve done I wouldn’t want to sacrifice anything. Perhaps the film is too short, and could have benefited from a longer running time, but it already runs nearly 2 ½ hours, and they were probably prohibited by the constraints of conventional film releasing.

Raimi and his writers (Alvin Sergeant and his brother Ivan) work extremely hard to fit in as much depth into each of these characters as possible while still fulfilling the basic structure needed of a big summer blockbuster. Fans simply looking for action will not be disappointed, as the film boasts some of the most impressive action sequences around, augmented by truly remarkable effects (particularly those of the Sandman). There is a heart here, and I appreciate its presence greatly. I just wonder if Raimi would have been better served by not trying so hard to hit it so far out of the park.

NOTE TO FANS: Bruce Campbell’s role is large enough to warrant billing in the opening credits. And gets to showcase how bad Bruce is at doing a French accent.