Spiderman 3
Film Muser Rating : 4 / 5
Release Date : May 4, 2007
Running Time : 140 minutes
Spiderman 3 opened in theatres this weekend, and even though I’m not a big fan of the series, I still thought I should see it opening weekend. The movie starts off more-or-less where Spiderman 2 ended with Peter (Toby Maguire) and Mary-Jane (Kirsten Dunst) in their new relationship. Mary Jane is now a Broadway actor and Peter has become a little more arrogant due to the immense popularity of his alter ego. This film is packed full of villains, including the Sandman, the alien influenced Venom, and the return of the Green Goblin - all vowing to destroy Spiderman.
In this installment we’re not just inundated with a geeky Peter Parker bumbling his way around, but we get to see a more interesting Peter Parker after he goes into a symbiotic relationship with an alien entity that fuses with his costume. With the suit, Parker starts to become more confident and is willing to “bend” the rules when getting the job done. In situations where Parker would usually get taken advantage of, he instead sticks to his guns and is a little bit more ruthless in his actions, as we see when Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) tries to forge some photos of Spiderman. Peter knows that his actions are not true to what he is, but the suit has an addictive nature that has lures Peter back to it again and again.
I’ve read a couple reviews trashing the scenes where Peter is under the influence of the suit. I honestly enjoyed them and thought they were hilarious. I think it did a good job of conveying just how the symbiosis with the alien was completely changing his behaviour. There were also complaints of hearing Kirsten Dunst singing twice in the movie. Personally I agree she’s not the greatest singer, but the songs are pretty short, and I wasn’t bothered by either of them.
As with the previous movies, the action sequences are awesome as one would expect. The special effects are pretty good too, but sometime the characters don’t look like they have any weight making their movements seem off. Granted, I don’t know what the movements of an actual human with spider powers would look like, so maybe the animators got it just right.
Having three villains in the movie seemed to have made it tough to focus on character development. I guess we already know what Harry Osborn’s (James Franco) issues are, but with Sandman we get one short scene to show the audience what’s driving his criminal activities. Sure it’s touching to know why he’s turned to a life of crime, but I would have liked to have seen more in this area. Spiderman 2 seemed to have spent a lot more time exploring Doctor Octavious and his plunge into crime.
I definitely would recommend seeing this movie if you were a fan of the previous two. It’s follows the same style as the rest of the series with an interesting story, complicated romance, and great action and special effects. There’s something here for everyone. It’s no secret that Spiderman 3 is not getting the critical acclaim that the rest of the series has, but I honestly thought it was on par with them. I got a similar feel from this one as I did from Spiderman 2. I definitely recommend seeing this one in the theatre for obvious reasons, but wherever you decide to watch it I think you’ll have a lot of fun.
Memorable Scene
When Parker is under the influence of the alien costume he becomes incredibly confident, pretty much the opposite of the Peter we know. In one scene he’s on the community phone of his apartment complex with his landlord’s daughter standing next to him, serving him cookies and milk. Parker continues to order her to feed him cookies, and to go bake him a new batch with nuts in them. The girl is so enamored by him that she happily complies with everything he says. Very funny stuff.

[…] our failure at basketball I went out to Spiderman 3 which was OK. Hemant has a pretty decent review up on his movie review site. Hemant likes pretty much all movies (even when they don’t show […]