Spider-Man 3 Review

Overall Rating

Good cinematics and acting, exciting story

Almost lost me at the preposterous creation of the Sandman, too many "convenient" moments.

WARNING! SPOILERS!

Spider-Man 3 could have been subtitled "When Karma Attacks." This is probably the closest a movie based off a comic book has ever come to a morality play, and they did a good job with it. In this installment, our hero is reveling in his celebrity status. Kids wear his t-shirts. His picture is everywhere. He gets the key to the city and is loved by all. He even regains his friendship with Harry after Harry suffers amnesia (too convenient moment #1). Harry, in his Goblin persona, attacks Peter and the two engage in an exciting chase as Peter tries to avoid hurting the friend who wants to kill him. Harry eventually suffers a head trauma, and when he wakes up has no memory of what happened to his father.

Things aren't going so well for Mary Jane, who gets canned from her first Broadway show after only one night because of terrible reviews. But Peter can't seem to comfort her, because he keeps hedging the conversations in terms of his celebrity status as Spiderman. He even botches a marriage proposal to Mary Jane, when she is trying to tell him that she was fired from the show, he keeps interrupting her by trying to relate her situation to Spiderman's. (Too convenient moment #2 when the girl that Spider-Man saves previously from falling to her death..who happens to be the commissioner's daughter...who happens to be his lab partner...who happens to be a girl he kissed when receiving the key to the city...shows up at the restaurant and says 'hi').

Cameo by Bruce Campbell in the restaurant made me forgive them for Too convenient moment #2.

Too convenient moment #3, and the biggest problem I had with the movie, comes from the creation of the Sandman. He is on the run after breaking out of jail, and climbs a fence into a top-secret testing area. He falls into an open pit full of sand where a team of scientists are about to start up their experiment. This is some sort of major study on molecular biology, and it's happening in the uncontrolled environment of an open pit exposed to the weather? Cut away to the scientist team. One of them alerts the others that there is something in the pit. Another one says "It's probably a bird. I will fly away when we fire it up."

WHAT!!??????

Anyway, so now we have the Sandman.

Too convenient moment #4 actually happens before the restaurant scene. Peter and Mary Jane are sharing a quiet moment out in the park watching the stars. As they kiss, they miss the meteorite falling not more than a few hundred feet from them. (Where were his spider senses?). The meteorite breaks open and this black goo comes out, moves along and attaches itself to the back of Peter's bike.

We find out that the Sandman apparently was involved in the death of Peter's uncle. This opens up old wounds. And while he is in his room contemplating what to do, the goo stuff attaches to him and creates a new dark suit. The new, darker Spiderman goes on the hunt for the Sandman and the two have a confrontation in the sewers, where we see a viciousness in Spiderman where it isn't enough to capture the criminal, he tries to deliberately kill him.

Harry gets his memory back and sets out to destroy Spiderman, using Mary Jane as bait. During all of this, the new, meaner Peter has destroyed the reputation of Brock, a hot shot photographer trying to take his spot at the Daily Bugle. Can't say Brock didn't deserve what happened to him, and we'll just leave it at that.

We end up with a second confrontation between Peter and Harry at Harry's mansion. This time neither holds back and we have an exciting fight between the two. Again, the viciousness of the suit is evident when Spiderman uses one of Harry's own bombs to try to kill him and leaves him for dead.

Of course, Peter is the hero and eventually comes to his senses. He realizes the suit is destroying him and everything he loves. In the bell tower of a church (symbolic, of course, but we're coming to Too Convenient moment #5) he struggles with the suit to remove it. Of course, inside the church is our pal Brock, who just asked God to "Kill Peter Parker." Brock apparently is the only one in the church to hear the church bell ringing, and goes to investigate. As he does, Peter wins his fight to free himself from the suit. But the goo falls down onto Brock, turning him into Venom.

Venom and Sandman team up to destroy Spiderman. And once more poor Mary Jane is the bait. The redeemed Spiderman now must face the consequences of his actions on his own, but realizes he can't fight the both of them alone. He goes to the only person he can, Harry, who miraculously survived the explosion with only minor facial scaring. He asked Harry to help him save Mary Jane, but Harry refuses. When Spiderman leaves, the butler confronts Harry and tells him the truth about what happened the night his father died. (Um, maybe you would have saved Harry a whole lot of pain if you had revealed this THREE MOVIES AGO!).

Spidey goes off to save Mary Jane and is getting his butt handed to him by the combined force of Venom and Sandman. At the last moment, Harry arrives to help save the day and the two team up to fight the badguys.

One of the strongest points of the movie comes at the end. Sandman confronts Spiderman after the destruction of Venom, and tells him the truth about what happened the night his uncle died. A repentant Sandman tells Spiderman that it was an accident, and that he had only been involved in the robbery originally because his own daughter is dying. Peter finally lets go of his anger and forgives the Sandman, who leaves on the wind. The scene was very well done and avoided being too cheesy while really driving home the point.

Even though there were too many convenient moments, I really did enjoy the movie. The fight scenes were well done, and all of the actors did a good job of bringing their roles to life. It's worth seeing on the big screen, even with its plot flaws.

Members' Comments onRena Morrissey's Review

• lancervhead on 10th May 2007

  Very in depth review! I totally agree with all the convenient moments. Harry Osbourns face also healed and scarred over very quickly and even though the bomb quite clearly damaged his mouth it had no effect on his speech.
  
  I notice you made no reference to the scenes of Peter Parker strutting down the street flirting with the women and buying his new suit. You've gotta agree that this was just awful! It didn't fit in with the film at all.
  
  Good review though.

• Rena Morrissey on 10th May 2007

  That's because I was trying to forget! Now you had to go and remind me of that awful scene. I should go back and deduct a point from the review, now that I think of it!