Spiderman 3

Spiderman 3 is the first big blockbuster of the summer, guaranteed to have an enormous opening, and in a word, disappointing. Spiderman has been one of the more carefully managed of the new super hero franchises and the first two films are as thoughtful and careful with the mythology and the characters as they are action packed and spectacular. Spiderman 3 is what one normally expects from a superhero franchise that has reached this point, a bloated mishmash of stories that flits from one action sequence to another without finishing it thoughts or giving its characters a chance to figure out where they are. Not that Spiderman 3 isn’t entertaining. There is certainly a lot of interesting high energy web swinging action. It is just that audiences have seen it all before and they expect a little more from their action films, a heart and soul perhaps. Most irritating is that there is certainly a wealth of good actors, good dialogue, and good plot lines. In fact there are probably enough here for two very good films if only Sam Raimi and the studio brain trust hadn’t decided to shoehorn it all into one film. As a result they leave what could have been a smooth interstate to Spiderman 4 full of the potholes of lost story threads and wasted characters.

Spiderman 3 picks up where Spiderman 2 left off. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are young and in love. Peter is still in school, May Jane is still on Broadway, they are still poor, and they live in the same dumpy apartment. Their best friend Harry Osborn is still a revenge obsessed wealthy recluse, and New York is still full of tall buildings, law breakers, and terrorized masses. Things seem to be going well for Spidey until the point where they and the film start to fall apart. The biggest question is who decided to turn Spiderman 3 into a musical. Aside from watching Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane struggle through two songs, one of which she abandons after the first chorus (fortunately since it reminds one of Marilyn Monroe’s stellar performance of the same song, I’m Through With Love, at the end of Some Like It Hot), we are forced to watch a Tobey Maguire dance routine and a strutting montage.

There is a good starting point for the film when bad guy number 1, or is it number 2, Sandman starts out as escaped con and concerned father Flint Marko, and due to a particle accelerator accident ends up made up of sand. Thomas Hayden Church does a fair job adding pathos to a character who gets probably half the scenes he needs to be filled out. The Sandman seems to have a number of powers, but it isn’t really explained how he can not only suck up huge masses of sand to make himself as big as he wants to be, but also seems to be able to travel as a dust storm, presumably he can control the wind too. A little more information about Sandman and his interest in helping his family while committing some little crimes around New York might have made him more engaging, ala Doc Ock, but instead he has to share time and motivation with a few other baddies.

Topher Grace joins the cast of Spiderman 3 as the other villain Venom, though no one really calls him by name or explains anything about him during the closing action of the film. Casting Grace was a move designed to cause controversy because he was also up for the role of Spidey and some wondered if he would have done a better job making Peter a bit more of a smart-aleck. Maguire shouldn’t worry about his job, at least not from this avenue. Grace’s Eddie Brock is a mildly irritating photographer who wants Peter’s job but otherwise seems neither harmful nor particularly memorable. Of course once the goo gets on him Eddie’s Venom single mindedly tries to take out Peter, and thus Spiderman, with a poorly thought out and of course entirely blunt attack. Now with the character of Venom the film seems to fall into one massive plot potholes. Though Dr. Connors has described the goo as amplifying aggression he hasn’t said much about it having any other special properties. It seemingly makes Parker’s Spiderman more aggressive, stronger, and more spidery. So how to explain that the goo suddenly gives fairly normal, annoying photog Eddie Spiderman like abilities? No answer? Well then just plow on with the film and pretend the question was never asked.

Then there is of course the black goo. A nicely computer generated, crawling, insidious force, that crashes in a meteorite. The nice thing story wise about meteorites is that it gets rid of all of the narrative work. It came from outer space, period the end. Aficionados will argue that it came from outer space in the comic books too, but relative accuracy doesn’t make up for lazy storytelling in this case. There is one scene where Peter takes some of the goo to Dr. Connors but he doesn’t wait for an answer and when he does receive one it is fairly superficial and readily discarded by the story. Maybe the goo deserved to be its own villain; it worked (sort of) for the pink goo in Ghostbusters II.

Maguire plays Peter as more cocky and brooding this time; and he is so self absorbed with being Spiderman that he misses when Mary Jane’s career takes a nosedive and she need comforting instead of lectures on how great Spiderman is. Difficulties ensue for the lovebirds even before the black goo makes its appearance but once it does Peter seems even less concerned with anyone around him. Peter starts wearing his new goo enhanced suit all of the time under he clothes and doing things he would never normally do. Thus the audience is subjected to Maguire wearing too much eyeliner, and combing his hair in front of his eyes pretending to be Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes while strutting ala Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. It is all painful to watch not only because the beloved hero is acting like an idiot but because the audience knows the film is wasting valuable time on trifles. Of course Peter learns his mistake and works to correct all of the harm he has done to the ones he loves, eventually.

The biggest waste of the film, and the franchise’s most interesting character, is James Franco’s Harry Osborn. Here Harry decides to take his revenge, gets amnesia, gets nice, gets mean, and never really seems to figure out which end is up in his vendetta on his father’s killer. Rather than reset Harry’s story or create a subtle cat and mouse game between the two Harry behaves like a jealous eighth grader and acts with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Harry’s Goblin resurrection is a distraction to the rest of the bad guys. As a result, what should be the true emotional thrust of perhaps two films is relegated to snippets here and there that form an unsatisfying spiral for the most conflicted and interesting of Peter’s friends/enemies. Not that Franco doesn’t do his best at making Harry likeable at times and truly reprehensible at others. But the actor can’t go in every direction at once as called for in the script. There is a scene about 2/3 of the way through the film where Harry comforts Peter and then craters him. Peter turns to look at him as he leaves and sees Harry leering at him. It is truly the best part of the film and had Harry’s story ended there for this film the next film would have been all set and things would have been more smooth and satisfying. But action filmmaking knows no restraint and so the plotline galumphs on to its inevitable conclusion.

There are of course other questions like why introduce veteran actor James Cromwell as the Police Captain only to give him two brief scenes. But considering that his both bright and at times airhead daughter Gwen Stacy, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, should be a bigger character in the next film maybe it is a gentle setup for Spiderman 4. The question isn’t whether anyone will see this film or the next one, of course people will line up to see this marquee superhero. The question is whether there will be anyone walking out of the theater happy with the film and anticipating the next one. After all the purpose of a franchise like this is to keep the franchise churning out films and turning profits. Spiderman 3 ends up being a shoulder shrugging experience easily forgotten on a Sunday afternoon and not a repeat watch in the theater. There is certainly a lot going on in the film but it is all superficial and easily digested in a single viewing. Certainly in a week or two there will be something more worthy of the price of admission.