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Week Of April 30, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri
April 30, 2007
Man, Oh Spider-ManHow do I dislike thee, Spider-Man 3? Let me count the ways ...
(SPOILERS THROUGOUT)
Been There, Done That
Spider-Man 3 suffers exactly what happens to so many sequels to big hits. It invests almost everything in the story that already exists while trying to change things just enough so you don't notice they are repeating almost every idea. But as you will read in other Ways, SM3's effort to make changes are radical in the worst way, while the core story is beginning to be flat out boring.For a third movie, we are still dealing with Peter and Mary Jane trying to work it out, still dealing with the Osbornes conflicting with Spidey, and still discussing how Uncle Ben died.
To give the film credit, they do allow Spider-Man to progress to being a full-fledged Manhattan hero. And the challenges to Peter Parker's job at the Daily Bugle were a forever issue in the comics, arising here too. But even these situations are given short shrift as the screenplay has so much flying at the audience that the twists in these two storylines are virtually unaddressed. The only acknowledgment of the Black Suited Spider-Man comes after PP is back to normal and even then, only in an insipid piece of TV newscaster monologue. And the challenge to PP's job is so absurdly dumb on the part of the Daily Bugle that it can only be seen as a lame device ... which, as I will explain in another Way, leads nowhere good.
You Take Yourself So Seriously
Spider-Man, at its core, is about the problems of a teenager writ large by superpowers that are as beyond his understanding as adolescence itself. Of course there was melodrama involved. But the first two films, the first especially, really focused most of the melodrama on the villains. Uncle Ben's death was the man exception, while the disconnect with Mary Jane always felt a bit more like a story point than anything like real drama.In Spider-Man 3, everyone is playing up the sturm und drang. Uncle Ben and Aunt May get a dose of overly dramatic screen time. The idiot photographer who tries to steal PP's job at The Bugle goes to church, suddenly finding religion. Mary Jane gets fired the day after her Broadway opening (count the times that has ever actually happened on part of one hand) but chooses not to share this with her boyfriend. And The Sandman has a scene right out of a kitchen sink drama, sneaking into the cold water flat of the daughter he has been kept from who, almost hilariously, has oxygen tubes up her nose, finds what will be his trademark "Sandman" sweater, then has words with his ex-wife, cast histrionically with Theresa Russell, which inevitably end up getting worse in front of the ailing daughter.
Oy.
Please note that by the end of the movie, all the major characters have wept at least once, mostly in the third act. Tears are the closing note of the film ... . Just what everyone wants from a Spider-Man film.
Some Ideas Cannot Be Written Off As Noble Failures
This one is simple. Kirsten Dunst can't sing. Sam Raimi cannot direct a musical sequence. And we get multiples of both.Flip side, Bruce Campbell is great in a cameo as a French Maitre d'. That bit is classic Raimi.
The biggest problem with Dunst's poor singing is that the audience doesn't really feel bad about her being fired, especially after we hear how good her replacement is. In fact, the replacement is so much better than Dunst, it occurred to me that there might have been some point in Mary Jane not being all that talented. But it doesn't find a place in the story, so I guess not.
Self-Parody Is Franchise Suicide
Taken out of context, I guess that Dark Peter Parker is an amusing bit. However, it suffers from a few major problems. First, PP's dark side being comedic works against the whole idea of the darkness being in this movie. And then, there are problems with the detail work. For instance, wouldn't Peter's dance number in the restaurant/jazz club give away his life as Spider-Man? Who else could do any of what he did? The logic of his dark side in relationship to women jumps back and forth ... one minute they are grossed out by him and drawn to him the next. Even the notion of anger towards Mary Jane, causing him to act out in front of her ... it makes no real sense in the screenplay because we know that he doesn't know what motivated her break up with him. Again, it's funny, but it's a distraction from the story, a sidebar, not the core.Peter having a symbolic wet dream with his webs in his room in the first film was funny, but not self-parody. The French Maitre d' bit is funny, but not self-parody. The Schumacher Batman movies were self-parody. Strutting dark Peter is self-parody. Not good.
Coincidence Is One Thing, But ...
When one sees a comic book movie or really any wide eyed action film, one has to be willing to accept the coincidences that make the drama fun. If you are going to get worked up about John McClain's limo driver hanging around with the music up in the basement of Nakatomi Plaza until his character is needed, you shouldn't be seeing movies like Die Hard.However ...
When an off-planet force, such as the black muck that becomes The Black Suit and later Venom in SM3, doesn't have any reason behind its appearance other than an utter coincidence in happening to land near Peter Parker and Mary Jane stargazing in Central Park and then becomes Venom through another unlikely coincidence that leads to the gunk dripping on a second character, the effort is wasted. Cool suit, cool Venom effects, but what is the motivation? If The Muck seeks rage and power, great. But the movie doesn't even try to sell that idea. It just plays out the plot points as complete coincidence.
Basil Exposition Not Only Lives, But He Appears Out Of Nowhere
Could they write a little more frickin' dialogue for Aunt May and "Houseman?"Never has Aunt May had so much to say to so little effect. Rosemary Harris remains one of the great actresses of all time. But in this one ... yadda yadda yadda. And when she shows up at Peter's one-room apartment unannounced at what seems to be 10 o'clock at night or later to deliver one more encouraging speech, I wanted to gag.
But compared to "Houseman," so named in the first two films and this because he is so completely insignificant a character in the other films and the first two acts of this film. And then, after 2 2/3rds of a movie series of near silence and total irrelevance, he changes the complexion of all three movies (not that they appear to care about our memories of the first two films) by kicking in a speech that should have happened early in Spider-Man 2 if it was ever going to happen at all.
Thought You Knew What Was Happening? FUCK You, You Don't!
Perhaps the greatest sin of Spider-Man 3 is its shocking willingness to pull 180 degree turns directly out of thin air.Harry Osborne wants to kill Peter, Harry doesn't want to kill Peter, Harry wants to kill Peter, Harry doesn't want to kill Peter ... and is, in the logic of this film, his best pal again, willing to give his life for him. What motivates the flips? Amnesia followed by a return of memory, followed by a speech by rhe Butler who explains that The Green Goblin was responsible for his own death ... which he knows because he was a witness ... which he didn't mention to Harry through this movie because ... well ... uh ... and didn't mention it in the last movie because he DIDN'T SPEAK.
The Sandman aka Flint Marko is a bad guy. Wait! He's a good guy who is misunderstood. Wait! He is still stealing. Wait! He gets sadly Sandman-ized. Wait! He's still a petty thief! Wait. He wants to kill Spider-Man! Wait! He doesn't want to kill Spider-Man!
Worse, the "Carjacker" who killed Uncle Ben in the first Spider-Man ... the one that didn't even have a character name ... gets a name in this one, Dennis Carradine. Why? Because all of a sudden, the screenwriters decide that "Carjacker" didn't kill Uncle Ben at all. Why? Because somehow they though it would be a good idea to have The Sandman also be Uncle Ben's killer. We even get a spiffy little flashback. But wait! Don't believe the flashback. The Sandman isn't Uncle Ben's killer after all. It was "Carjacker" after all!
Calgon, take me away!
Of course, there is so much incredibly expensive CG action in this film that many will get through it, not really dislike it, but have a vaguely displeased gut feeling. I can't really say it is a horrible movie. But it is quite a mess... a mess of good intentions gone terribly wrong.
And it does, indeed, feel like the end of this franchise as we know it. Given the rote nature of this one, almost hidden by the flailing of attempted drama - flailing like a marlin on a 300 lb test line - it's probably time to cash those checks and move along.
It's been fun.
E Me.
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