Spidey Spins But Fails to Score

Spider-Man 3: 1 PB Jar
"Signal Fire": 2.5 PB Jars

I have never been more excited to hear a Snow Patrol song.

Now, I’ve been excited to hear Snow Patrol’s tunes on numerous occasions. Ever since hearing “Spitting Games” while playing EA’s MLB 2004 for Xbox, I have been a pretty big fan of these Scottish lads. Shortly thereafter, I discovered they were more than a one-video-game-hit wonder by picking up their album Final Straw. Today was different. Today was especially exciting. Today, Snow Patrol’s latest, “Signal Fire”, was signaling that Spider-Man 3’s credits were rolling… finally!

I was shocked to find the film’s length listed as around 2 hours and 20 minutes. I could have sworn it was 4 plus hours. Picking up where the (few) flaws of Spidey 2 left off, the romance between Peter Parker and Mary Jane is tepid and I found myself not caring a lick whether they stayed together or not. Aunt May’s “words of wisdom” were trite and clichéd, garnering an eye roll with each utterance. Spidey 3 then takes failure to new heights by missing on every cylinder that its predecessor nailed. The action is boring and feels “been-there-done-that”. There are too many villains, with both Sandman and Venom (in particular) suffering from severe underdevelopment. And most importantly, for a film whose marketing campaign built off the tagline “the greatest battle lies within”, there is nothing emotionally gripping or seriously dramatic about it.

Venom is arguably the best villain in the franchise (he is certainly my favorite), and the film simply fails to do his character justice. Topher Grace makes good work of the two-dimensional role he inhabits, but with such little screen time and development, he is really at a loss. Supposedly director Sam Raimi was not a fan of the Venom character prior to filming Spidey 3. If true, then it is really a shame that he felt the need to include him in the film at all. The storyline is rushed and underwhelming for a character that could hold his own as the sole villain in a future Spidey. Apparently Raimi is a devoted fan of Sandman, which leads to some crap being made up about Peter’s uncle being killed by Sandman/Flint Marko in order to create a revenge subplot. It really isn’t necessary. Unfortunately, I was so annoyed by the pointlessness of his character that I virtually overlooked Thomas Haden Church’s decent performance, not to mention the slick technical effects employed to create his “sandiness.” The Harry/New Goblin (James Franco) character is far and away the most developed and most interesting. Franco delivers the films deepest, most enjoyable performance, as well as its best one-liner (nearly worth the price of admission by itself). Too bad this movie wasn’t equally “soooo good”.

The most enjoyable part of the film was Peter’s emo turn as his scowling, eyeliner wearing, hair flipping alter ego “black-suited Peter/Spidey”. But it wasn’t enjoyable for the right reasons. It was practically farcical how over the top Tobey Maguire took his new image, and I found it all quite hilarious. At the same time, it ruined any chance I had at taking the movie seriously. Plus, I kept thinking of that scene in American Pie where Jim asks his buddies if Nadia would prefer “Cool Hip Jim” or “Laid Back Jim”.

You be the judge... "Nerdy Peter" or "Emo Peter"?

Another highlight for me was seeing this film with a fantastic audience. I don’t know if everyone was drunk, overly caffeinated, or both, but they certainly were fired up. There was clapping as the film started (none when it stopped though!) and lots of comments throughout. When Mary Jane kissed Harry, some rowdy male in the back row yelled out “slut!”, resulting in uproarious laughter and discomfort… quite possibly the highlight of the movie for me. Such outbursts usually take away from the overall enjoyment of a film. Sadly, in this case, the outbursts and laughter were welcome distractions, filling the void left by a mediocre, utterly disappointing Spider-Man 3.