Warning: Spoilers ahead!
I went out with some friends and saw Spiderman 3 last night. It's definitely not as good as the first two. I mean, I enjoyed the experience and it had it's moments, but honestly, it was like they were trying to fit too many stories and sub-plots into one movie. There were too many villains and too many new characters. Between Harry/Green Goblin Jr., the Sandman, and Venom - not to mention the introduction of Gwen Stacy and the evil Peter - it was like they were trying to fit two or three movies into one. They couldn't tell everyone's story to a great enough degree to make us care about each one. And having three villains makes the overall story feel disjointed. First Spidey is fighting the Green Goblin, then the Sandman, then the Green Goblin again, then the effects of the black Spidey suit, then Venom and Sandman together with the Green Goblin's help. And in the midst of all this he and MJ break up, he dates Gwen, finds out who really killed Uncle Ben, and pisses off the guy who becomes Venom. It was too much.

And it was too slow-paced. The black Spidey suit doesn't even show up till half-way through the movie, and Venom doesn't really make an appearance until the final climactic battle. And the whole middle part of the movie, which is mainly about Peter and MJ's relationship troubles, really drags. Despite the multiple bad guys, this installment probably has few action sequences than either of the first two movies.

In my opinion, they could have easily left out one of the bad guys, re-wrote the movie to focus much more on the other two and especially on the evil/black-suited Spidey and it would have been a much better movie. Personally I think the whole Sandman plot was unnecessary and woefully undeveloped (we never even find out what happens to his daughter). They could have left him out entirely without changing the plot much; and doing so would have left them more time to develop the black-Spidey/Venom storyline and create a more pronounced love-triangle between Pete, MJ and Harry or Pete, MJ and Gwen. As it was, each of these was just briefly touched on before the movie jumped to a different storyline.

The movie had a few exceptionally cheezy moments too (which I have to admit did get a laugh out of me): the heart-to-heart between Harry and his butler (who could not act to save his life) in which, out of nowhere, the butler confesses to knowing that Spidey didn't actually kill Harry's father; the absurdly goofy "bad-boy Peter" scene where he dyes his hair black, combs it forward, gets a better wardrobe, and struts down the street winking at hot women, becoming what one of my friends afterwards called "emo-Spidey"; the dance scene where emo-Peter tries to get back at MJ by stealing the show in a jazz club where she works; the random Spidey running by the American flag shot; the equally random cameo by Stan Lee (creator of Spiderman) where I swear he quotes one of his lines from Mallrats; Aunt May's typically cheezy advice "The hardest part is forgiving yourself"; etc...

For all that, the movie was still enjoyable IMO. It had its fun parts, and I like the main characters and how they've been developed over the three movies. And when it comes right down to it, I guess I'm just a sucker for superhero stories. :)

Labels: fun