Down Came The Rain…And Definitely Washed The Spider Out…
As stated many times over the course of many film reviews that have amounted to what this Blog-site has become, not only is the hardest job for a director to construct a sequel that maintains the consistency of quality that derived from the first film, as well as adding a new motif that functions to flourish the plot and/or characters, but it’s also not uncommon to witness successful superhero films spawn their own series due to the demands of the avid-watcher in the modern era. The development of the said and lauded genre has, of course, dominated the cinematic space in this moment in time to the point that they’re consuming the euphoria of our pleasure on a consistent basis that, for most, inadvertently ‘tricks’ our perspective into liking these demanded productions so much. Arguably, besides the catastrophic disappointment that was Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand, it wasn’t until audiences glimpsed their gazes towards Sam Raimi’s hero outing of Spider-Man 3 when the landscape of the superhero genre drastically changed for better and worse. Spider-Man 3, another comic-book adaptation which similarly shares the same problems with Ratner’s take on the last X-Men proceedings with a lack of focus in terms of the inordinate script and deficient characterisation, is a feature that manifests the attributes of a franchise killer and stamps its authority as being one of the biggest superhero flops in cinema history…
Peter Parker has finally managed to piece together the once-broken parts of his life by maintaining a balance between his relationship with Mary-Jane Watson, and his responsibility as the well-loved Spider-Man. However, danger and menaces lurk around every corner for the webbed-hero, as he’s not only pitted against his old friend Harry Osborn, who seeks revenge for his father as The New Goblin, but he also has to contend with Uncle Ben’s run-away killer of Flint Marko, who has fatefully turned himself into the Sandman. Fuelled with internal rage over the news of the fugitive who really killed Uncle Ben, Peter quickly revels in the new black-suit, that greatly amplifies his powers, and hunts down the man responsible for the death of his father figure. However, this new suit begins to greatly intensify the much darker qualities of Peter’s personality and soon begins to lose himself and others he loves so much. Will Peter decide to keep this new suit that encroaches his own-self? Or will he go out to set things right again?…
Well…Where does one simply begin in dissecting such a scatter-brained catastrophe? Aside from the respectively bizarre moments and sequences that haunt audiences’ perception of this film to this day, the obvious discussing point in regards to the failure that Sam Raimi, and especially Sony, bestowed upon Spider-Man 3 is the poorly written script and the overabundance of unnecessary characters and story-telling. What’s remarkable in viewing the last instalment of Raimi’s ‘Spider-Man’ franchise, is how much it deviated itself from something that was culminating towards a compelling and tense completion of this iteration of Spider-Man, to an alternate path that ultimately failed in trying to incorporate multiple story-arcs and characters into a single-collective. One of the key aspects that made Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 so effective as a sequel to the first film, was its manner in which it implemented the already established aspects/themes with added constructs that attributed to the toned social motifs that were inclined with Peter’s inability to handle his social-life with his responsibilities as Spider-Man. What we got in return, was a Superhero narrative that related to all demographics and resulted into a appetising conclusion which not only saw Peter finally getting the chance to be with Mary Jane, but also see’s Peter’s friend of Harry Osborn, finally knowing the identity of Spider-Man and becoming the new Goblin to effectively take revenge for his father’s death. To put it simply, Spider-Man 2 ended on a promising note that would see Raimi’s Spider-Man world conclude with a confrontation between Peter Parker and Harry Osborne, with Mary Jane in the middle of it all. In the case of this finale however, everything that Raimi had been building towards with his series, as just mentioned, bewilderingly dissipates and becomes something that doesn’t credit the efforts that were made before. As the film hits the 15 minute mark, the whole structure of the narrative becomes non-existent when the film, wrongly, cuts back-and-forth from multiple perspectives; ranging from Peter’s interactions with Mary Jane, to Harry’s emergence as The New Goblin who, annoyingly, gets side-swiped and loses his memory of past events and the introduction of Flint Marko who goes to see his wife and sick daughter. Just from reading how much goes on within the first act of the film, and how it progresses through to the 2nd and 3rd acts, it’s mind-numbing how much the script can’t seem to balance between how many characters and sub-plots are introduced and are threaded amongst each other through the total non-nonsensical run time of 139 minutes. What’s even worse, is how much of the same formula Spider-Man 3 uses from the previous films to construct something that is stultifying to view. Not only do we have a love-triangle spout between Peter, Mary Jane and Harry Osborn again, which is tiresome motif of the series that didn’t need to be explored again, but we also get meaningless sub-plots involving Flint Marko being the real killer of Uncle Ben from the first film, the symbiote showing up from a meteorite and changing Spider-Man’s appearance and personality and another love-triangle arc involving Peter, Gwen Stacey and Eddie Brock (who also turns into Venom for the fan-boys) that all culminate to a film that is simply all over the place. There really isn’t a concrete plot-line that we can all follow; every little story detail is just meshed together incoherently. This incomprehensible narrative structure, inevitably, results into another predictable outcome in which Spider-Man must defeat the villains of Sandman and Venom and rescue the 3rd time-in-a-row damsel in distress of Mary Jane, as well as Harry Osborn who shows up for the wall-crawler given the fact that he now knows that Peter didn’t kill his father and ultimately dies, trying to create some spec of emotion that the entirety of the story didn’t show beforehand… This and the story it presents us with…is a cumulative shambles!!
What’s even more surprising to notice is the over-reliance of the CG effects that warrants Spider-Man 3 to be even more of a huge let-down. In looking back at the first two films of this fatefully doomed series, they never really depended on the use of Computer-Generated-Imagery too much, especially the first film which favoured for the more practical features that grounded the films visuals instead of eradicating it with an over-reliance of CG effects. Of course, it was there when it needed to be, but it wasn’t used as a crutch. It’s frankly startling how much Spider-Man 3 embraces in the fickle construct that is CGI. There are so many times, during the fight sequences especially, when the film relies upon fully-rendered digital human faces that ultimately takes you completely away from caring about what exactly is going on the screen. Even the green-screen, when Harry is attacking Peter early into the film, is just as unforgivably bad as the effects work that was done on Joel Shumacher’s Batman and Robin. Don’t get me wrong, when it’s utilised properly, there are a lot of advantages of CGI that film-makers can benefit from; including the fact that it can fully enable to express a directors specific vision through reasonable and cheap means and how it can create a grand spectacle with ease rather than relying on expensive practical effects that wouldn’t look good in comparison. However, as seen throughout the entirety of the Star Wars prequel features, the overuse of CGI can often leave audiences feeling that the film lacks authenticity. By mercurially using such a tool in a film can, indeed, lessen the dramatic and visual impact of the scenario that is being displayed, and Spider-Man 3 is another contemporary example that bears witness to this claim. The only exception when this calamity of a film implements generated effects in a potent way, is the instance in which we see Marko re-emerge as Sandman which is played out beautifully with a suiting musical score done by Christopher Young.
As mentioned before in discussing the films dramatic fail in presenting a conclusive ending to Raimi’s filmic version of the once loved wall-crawler, the other big problem that Spider-Man 3 upholds is its handling of the characters and how they’re wrongly managed throughout the course of the running-time. Similar to how drastic the story unbelievably faltered from the promising end of the 2nd film to the start of 3, the characters also placed into lazy story-telling tropes and cliche’s that bore the viewing experience; especially with the ‘development’ of Peter Parker. One of the things that was intersting to watch of the previous film in Spider-Man 2, was the how this theme of responsibility developed with Peter’s struggling in trying to balance being Spider-Man and leading a proper social-life by seeing Mary Janes’ debut play and getting to his classes on-time. By the end of that film, the theme of responsibility is neatly resolved with Peter finally getting the chance to be with Mary Jane and still saving lives as Spider-Man. With Tobey Maguire reprising his role as Peter/Spider-Man once again, where his character receives credibility of a high-standard in the 1st act, the main protagonist doesn’t unfold as one might expect to see. It’s as if Raimi, and the other script writers, stumbled on how they could advance such a popular superhero icon. Of course, many who have seen this disaster of a sequel will use the awkward montage scene of Peter Parker pointing and dancing on the streets of New York in a cringe-worthy fashion (Honestly, what tempted the film-makers to put something like that in this film?). However, what’s noteworthy to behold of Peter Parker’s ‘advancement’ since the previous film, is how much of an obnoxious lead he is even before he gains the black suit, which randomly changes his hair to a darker tone with no explanation. With their being another love-triangle spout, there are occasions when Peter would be either pretentious towards the love of his life, when they talk about the critics reviews of Mary Janes’ performance, or incredibly obnoxious when Mary Jane tries to dissolve Peter’s attitude when he learns of Uncle Ben’s real killer. While it may seem realistic to a select few, what’s the point in routing for a hero like this? A lead who not later becomes even more of a phoney when he arbitrarily dances with Gwen Stacey in front of a deprived Mary Jane, but easily forgives the not-needed character of Sandman for ‘accidentally’ killing Uncle Ben (which didn’t need to be re-told in the first place!). The only real silver-lining this overall heap of waste that is the characterisation of this film, is the consistency that J.K. Simmons brings with his portrayal as J. Jonah Jameson. Having watched the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon when I was younger, Simmons was seriously just born to play a role that provides a quick succession of wit and anger at the same time. As for the rest of the cast, they’re all either subsided to predictable roles in the spaces that there given, or simply characters that encroach on this films longing and wanting success. If it’s not Harry Osborne who gets swept-away from the story, through a fight an early fight with Peter and losing his memory, it’s Mary Jane who ends up becoming the one who needs saving… again! Lastly, to put it mildly, the purpose of adding the characters of Flint Marko/Sandman, Gwen Stacey and Eddie Brock/Venom, were not needed. With how the series was building up the confliction between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn throughout the course of the 1st and 2nd films, this finale ultimately should have focused more on this, rather than this underwhelming spectacle.
In similar vain to how Bret Ratner failed audiences with X-Men: The Last Stand, a film that tried to rekindle a forgotten franchise but negated the status of the series as time went along, Sam Raimi’s last venture into superhero films with Spider-Man 3, similarly disappoints by not only adopting an ambitious script that completely disregards the narrative progress of the previous films, but introduces a mass amount of characters and sub-plots that were simply unnecessary. It truly is a series killer and did, indeed, harm the way in which Spider-Man would be received on the silver-screen later down the line. For someone like Raimi to come out years later, and to express how “It’s a movie that just didn’t work well… I didn’t really believe in all the characters…”, then, do I really need to say more?…
And on that note, it’s time for me to end this week’s review. As always everyone, thank you for reading my latest film review of the disappointment that is Spider-Man 3 and I hope you’ve all enjoyed the read!! 😉. If anyone has an opinion on either my review or on the film itself, please feel free to drop a comment down below. This is definitely a film that I’m never watching again…It’s simply not worth my time anymore!! 😂. Next week, I will finally bring you the anticipated review of Keanu Reeves’ latest action flick of John Wick: Chapter 2 which should be an intersting one. Once again, thank you to everyone for reading this week’s Blog Post and I’ll see you all next week. Have a nice week!! Adieu!! 😀👍😎😜
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ – Alex Rabbitte