Plot Packed Spiderman 3 Lives Up to the Hype

Spider-man 3 is one of the most anticipated movies of 2007 - and with great expectations comes great responsibility... To satisfy the audience that is.

To absolutely no one's surprise, Spiderman 3 broke single day and opening weekend records almost effortlessly, raking in an estimated $151 million in its first three days currently standing with over $240 million domestically just over two weeks into release. In this day and age it has become almost too easy to let the numbers that go with blockbusters do the talking. Sure, Spiderman was going to rake in the benjamins, but would it actually be good?

Going into the movie I'd say that I had fairly high expectations. The previews I had seen and snippets from YouTube all looked impressive and started to build a lot of promise. Of course, in the post-Phantom Menace world "guarded optimism" is the operative attitude when it comes to movies of this type. The hype almost always sets them up to disappoint. Yet, I went into the theatre expecting good things with only a few real concerns, all of which were put to rest.

Spider-man was nothing if not ambitious. Director Sam Raimi had a lot on his plate- Venom, Sandman, Harry Osborne, introduction of Gwen Stacy and her police captain father and the continuing trials and tribulations of the Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson relationship. Fanboys wanted justice done to all of these elements and even stretched to two and a half hours, it would be a tough task. Let me say that they pulled it off. The movie started with an almost frantic pace as we got bounced around in an attempt to set up everything, so much so that almost nothing got the proper amount of attention. Then, slowly but surely, things calmed down and the story settled in. If it had maintained that break-neck pace throughout, this movie would have been a disaster.

Let me start with the lows. This installment had some moments that were really bad, most notably when escaped convict Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church) is being chased by the police and just happens to literally fall into a science experience which ultimately changes him into the Sandman. It was truly an expose on contrivance. Another problem with the film was that the Stacys (Gwen (Bryce Dallas Howard) and her father, the police Captain (James Cromwell) were seemingly added without much of a purpose. Yes, Spider-man rescues Gwen and she serves to create an element of conflict between Peter and Mary Jane, but mostly she was a throwaway character. The character had no depth and, quite simply, no real purpose.

The movie also had plenty of cheese. Naturally there were spidey jokes and one-liners that rolled an eye or two, but that is expected. Harry Osborne (James Franco) getting hit on the head and suddenly being one step away from a happy-go-lucky, ever-grinning buffoon, all because he loses his short-term memory is not. Harry only proved interesting and worthwhile as a character when he was out to get Peter as “The New Goblin”. During those sequences, I thought it was handled well and the fights were very entertaining.

The dramatic spat between Peter and MJ was so-so, some good, some not so good. It didn’t always hold my interest. However, it wasn’t poorly handled and served the movie well. That said, Peter’s struggles related to this relationship drama were great.

Enter Venom. Every fanboy was drooling with anticipation to see Venom take life on the big screen and I for one thought it was well done. It worked! Peter merges with the symbiont and suddenly becomes the “bad boy” which was also extremely well handled. We see Peter rebelling and lashing out for attention (because his negative emotions are magnified by Venom) and just about all of it felt awkward. Awkward as in Peter Parker remains anything but cool, just the way it needed to be. He became a nerdy emo and that entertained me.

Topher Grace also did a fine job playing opportunistic jerk Eddie Brock. Brock is a freelance photographer in competition with Peter for the open staff photographer job at the Daily Bugle. Long story short Peter led to Brock’s deserved downfall. When Brock became the Venom we all wanted to see, the effects looked great! Of course, the fact that he sought out Sandman to “team up” against Spider-man once again came across as lame.

Effects-wise, the icing on the cake for Spider-man 3 was definitely Sandman. The previews looked promising and the film delivered. His origin sequence was top-notch! However, after some reflection I find the Sandman plot to be a bit weak but at the same time I feel that the writers did a pretty decent job of explaining away a potentially major plot hole, so I don’t feel like it hurt the movie at all.

All in all, Spider-man 3 was able to pull off what it needed to fairly successfully. It found a paced rhythm after some frantic opening scenes and put together a story that worked as the final chapter of a trilogy, if that’s what ends up happening. We got an awesome looking Sandman, satisfying Venom, closure to a few different story lines and some very entertaining fight sequences. It had some weaknesses, but as a whole Spider-man 3 is worth the price of admission and a must see for Spider-man fans. I was entertained. 8/10