Re: The Official: 'Saw this movie, this is what I think' thread
Film: Spider-Man 3Date: 05/04/07Rating: 82% <span style="color:#2E8B57">(B-)</span>First off, this installment was by far the worst of the trilogy. But it wasn't bad.There are tons of flaws in the film. I generally hate the term "flaw", but when a film has upwards of a dozen different things going on at once and the dark side of Peter Parker is showcased with comedy in the majority, I struggle to find a better term.The acting was also at its weakest. Kirsten Dunst is not a great actress, but she seemed slightly uninspired with this one (although I kind of got the same vibe while watching 1 & 2 earlier this weekend). Tobey Maguire was very good as always, Rosemary Harris held together some abysmal dialog, James Franco was a tad stiff, Thomas Haden Church was surprisingly solid (heh), Bryce Dallas Howard seemed useless, Topher Grace was one of the worst casting choices in recent memory, and J.K. Simmons was flawless.All the villains were too much. I thought that the story would have worked much better if the climax would have been Peter ridding himself of Venom, Eddie Brock strung up in his desperation just like the TV series. Instead, the whole process of Brock becoming Venom happens so quickly you lose the grandeur of Spider-Man's most famed nemesis. This makes Venom seem like some random villain, with Grace's unthreatening voice not helping matters.The action scenes, while mostly enjoyable, suffer from the usual overabundance of CGI. During the first half of the film, when that crane slams into one of the skyscrapers, the visuals don't seem passable for an XBox 360 game.It seems as if the villains were secondary, Sam Raimi using them as minor anchors that in turn steer Peter Parker in yet another questionable direction. For this to actually work, you need all other factors (dialog, acting, fan-relation and acceptance) to come into place - they don't.Still, Spider-Man 3 has many redeeming qualities that make it yet another memorable chapter in a truly incredible super hero series. The action scenes are scintillating, with the final battle being one of the coolest things to hit the screen all year.When Harry dies, his face scarred and everyone's emotions running high, the movie peaks perhaps higher than its early counterparts. I'm not sure whether the decision to kill off Harry was a good thing in the long run (as "stiff" as James Franco can be, I somehow enjoy his acting a ton), but for sake of the individual movie, it was heart-wrenching. The scene on the bridge and Uncle Ben's (Cliff Robertson) death are equally impressive.So you've got tons of negatives, with a few overwhelming positives. All in all, with Spider-Man 3 being an action/adventure film, I'm not going to judge the thing on too critical a level, and that allows me to enjoy the thing for what it might be meant to be:And unabashed thrill-ride with good-hearted comedy that, through the bad, you recognize good intention.