The Pelican’s Perch

Spider-man 3
Score: 5/10
I’m not a comic fan. So, comic fans don’t come at me with the whole “well, you just don’t know the whole back story” defense to what I’m about to write. Sure, I don’t know the history of Venom, but I do know that he wasn’t in the comic book series for a page and a half in one of the comics. He was a big part of the comic. So, how they get off with such a sudden, “Here’s Venom!” move is beyond me.

The other two Spider-man movies were decently good. Good stories, good acting, fun action scenes. This new one focuses WAY too much on the action scenes, making it one of the most expensive movies ever I believe (don’t quote me on that), and kind of threw the plot out the window. Strange black ooze falls to Earth and gets in Peter’s suit, makes him somewhat of an asshole to everyone. Oh hey, we’ll make his best friend Harry have amnesia, then just not out of nowhere. Heck, they’ll figure out a meaning for it. Bad guys? Oh, we’ll build up Sandman and really give him a backstory viewers can learn and feel for, but then just have Venom appear out of nowhere.

Sorry for being facetious, I just walked away from this movie in shock at all the loop holes and lack of attention to detail. Sure, it’s an action flick and there’re super powers involved, but the main problem I had didn’t involve having to stretch my imagination too far to be able to believe the scenes, but trying to figure out why half the stuff in the movie were put in there in the first place. In the lobby I found nearly a perfect split between people who liked it and people who didn’t. The problem was the people raving about it were fanboys and little kids, and the people scratching their heads or saying that they didn’t like it were the adults. I know it’s not as simple as saying if you’re a kid or fanboy you’ll love it, if you’re an adult you won’t, but don’t try to overanalyze this movie if you can resist. It’ll just ruin it for you.

Toby McGuire told Conan recently that he thought this was the best of the three. He wants people to see the movie, so obviously he’s going to say that, but something tells me there’s a reason he responded to Conan’s question with “I’m really pleased with how it turned out”. If I was in the biggest (pre) Summer blockbuster in a few years and was really happy with the movie, I’d be bragging all over town. But maybe he was timid in his response because he was afraid people would see the glaring plot holes, unessesary and overblown action scenes, and poor handling of the important scenes and spread bad reviews about it. There was plenty of potential for this movie to have blown people away. Some of the biggest events, as far as the trilogy’s plot is concerned, happen in this movie, but the characters are given far too little attention compared to the action scenes and by the time the end rolls around and something significant happens to more than one of the characters, I’m left asking, “Shouldn’t I be feeling some emotion right now?” The answer is yes, but when you don’t allow the characters to develop, the audience stops caring.

Who knows though. I’d say “maybe it’s just me being disappointed” with a movie that had a lot of potential and failed miserably, but I’ve had more conversations than I wanted to with friends where the conclusion seemed to always be the same: Spider-man 3 is the worst of the trilogy and if you must see it, then wait until it comes to your dollar theatre. Of course, if you happen to be a kid and are reading this, then what are you waiting for?! Get out there and see this movie! It rocks!!!

P.S. People asked me why nearly all my movies get a 7/10 or more and I rarely dislike a movie. The answer is simple. I try not to waste time seeing a bad movie. What’s the point, so obviously I’m only going to review movies I really enjoy. Plus, it’s my job to keep you from not wasting your time on bad music and movies, so unless it’s a big blockbuster I just can’t ignore (like this movie), then most movies I review will be ones that impressed me and that you should see. But it does feel pretty good to rip a movie a new one every now and then.