'Spiderman 3' - A true triple threat
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn

Let the summer movie extravaganzas begin! Lets start with a comic book superhero that has proven his box office work not once but twice, with a budget of close to $ 260 million dollars, a running length of two and a third hours, three villains each with their own alter-egos plus Spideys worst enemy, himself, and you'd think you had the perfect recipe. The answer to that is a massive yes and no. Spiderman3 is a lot more of a story about Peter Parker then it is about Spidey. Is that a bad thing? That depends on what you want to see, a non-stop action machine or a movie with a story with meaning? Happily you get both but sadly the two drag out for an incredibly long time.

Since most people reading this will go, if they have not already, to see this I'll leave most of the story out of this review and just cover the things you already know a little about. Spiderman3 starts off not to long after Spiderman2 left off. Spidey(Tobey Maguire) is still fighting a fight he does not want against his best friend now turned Goblin, Harry Osborn(James Franco). Peter is still in love with MJ(Kirsten Dunst) and wants to purpose to her. Peter is still a photographer for the overly stressed out Jameson(J.K. Simmons). Finally Peter is still haunted by the death of his uncle(Cliff Robertson). All of this is played out in what I found to be the best damn opening credits yet created. The opening credits really pave the way for some of the great visual effects that come later. However savor those great VFX scenes when you see them because they are rare and far between.

Enter the new story web, err lines. Add all of the above, mix in new villains added to the fact that everybody seems schizo in this movie and you have a convoluted web that even Spidey fines difficult to navigate through. OK, so its not so much schizo as an exploration of free will, the consequences of choices and the quest for forgiveness and redemption. In a cameo by the man, Stan Lee himself, he tells Peter that there is goodness and a hero hidden inside each of us. For Peter its the search to find the true and definitive hero inside that lies at the center of this movie. Is he the crowd loving ham, the love driven man, or the web slinging arm of justice? Peter must deal with finding out if he is man enough to be a good husband to MJ, can he beat out the new photographer for a staff position, can he ever heal the rift between him and Harry. In the angst of all of this an alien species has landed and fallen in love with these challenges in Peter and act to amplify both his powers and the growing darkness inside.

Along with this comes the man that really killed Uncle Ben and who has just escaped from prison. Flint Marco(Thomas Haden Church), like Peter, is a man with great desires but who sadly keeps getting caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. Flint's only desire is to find the money and/or help to save the life of his daughter. On the run from the police, Flint finds himself in the middle of a high energy particle experiment and accidentally becomes crystallized and then dematerialized. His later reconstitution as the Sandman is way and by far the best scene in this movie. Its not just the incredible effects that make it so dang good, but the slowness, the struggle and fight to find himself. To learn who and what he is and find the strength, thanks to his love for his daughter, to make himself whole again. The music created for this scene is perfect and plays well with the slow triumphs and downfalls as he works his way back to being a man again. You find it hard later in the movie to boo the Sandman and happily in the end you won't have to.

You'd think with the Black Spiderman, Sandman, the new Goblin, Harry, and later Venom that this movie would be action scene after action scene all in one long run away battle sequence. However this movie tries to break from that and build off what made Spiderman2 a success, a real story. The backbone of this story is the relationship between MJ and Peter. For years it was MJ that was the star and now she's staring in a major Broadway play. Peter was always the runt left in the dusty corners yet who found strength in being Spiderman, the hero. Now the tables start to turn and Spiderman becomes the hero that kids love and women want to kiss (literally!) MJ, finally at her peak, falls and is taken even further down thanks to Peters exploits and then even further thanks to Black Spiderman and his amplified dark side. Can his love for MJ ever be enough to cast off the darkness and if needed the hero inside just for her?

This search for who Peter Parker really is and what he wants to be is what this movie is really al about. While all of the tangents that build this story has meaning and is important to the whole of the story, the massively long interludes in action become almost tiresome. We come for the Spidey action and while its there its in-frequent and choppy. Spiderman encounters Harry as the new Goblin right away and while its a decent action scene it ends abruptly. Next up comes Spidey and Sandman and while the fight sequences are very fun to watch and decently put together, (did I mention a near $ 260 million dollar budget?) it ends incredibly easily. Spidey as always swings to the rescue of Gwen Stacy(a now blond Bryce Dallas Howard) Police Captain Stacy's daughter, after a freak crane accident. The VFX here is both good and cheesy at the same time but I did enjoy the floor breaking loose inside the ripped open building. Black Spidey meets 'his' now enemy Harry, not as Goblin but as his now ex-friend and competitor. The fight again is fast and easy but the end game of it is startling and almost extremely well played. Then there's little to no major action till the end battle with Spiderman, newly born Venom, thanks to Peter, Sandman and Goblin. Oh and of course MJ is at the center of the whole battle too.

The end battle is not bad, not bad at all. Yes there are the ole cheesy Spiderman-comic book type scenes we have scene since the first movie. But there is also some great VFX mixed in here and there as well. This final battle scene brings all of the stories back together and resolves them all. But that is exactly what the final battle is about, resolution. This is a story of the fact that we all have choices. Even in our worst and darkest points we always have a choice to be good. We always have the ability to rise above, to be born afresh and be better, that's the greatest gift we each have. We also have the ability to deny that choice and continue our fall. Its a fall that seems like it can't continue forever yet we always find new ways to stretch sealed doors open and drop farther. Sometimes one falls so far that there is nothing but the blackness and the desire to look beyond it is just not something we want to do. At those times the end comes. It comes painfully and quickly.

For us, like our heroes, both good and bad in this movie, its possible to find forgiveness, to find hope and to find peace. Spiderman3 is much more then an action movie, although more action would have been greatly appreciated. It has a story that tries to reach inside each of us and to awaken the sleeper that lies hidden deep inside. The story was extremely powerful to the lady next to me who was literally crying, not just a tear running down her cheek but really crying at the end. I admit I wanted to cry too but from boredom at a couple points in the movie. The strength of the story seems to have as much power and efficacy as does some of the amazing special effects.

Conclusion:

Spiderman3 is a triple threat. It has action, its has a story and it has the cast and crew to make it all come together. It's a long story mixed here and there with decent to great action scenes and some decent visual effects. Yes this movie will be nominated for best Visual Effects at this next years award shows but it will not win. If you go for the VFX you'll be happy. Happy from the fantastic opening credits to the final battle. If you came for action you'll find enough to put a smile on your face. If you are a single middle aged female at the theater by yourself, and strangely there were several at the showing I was at, you'll even find a chic flick in plain sight. While this movie spent along time and a lot of money to make it will definitely pull a heavy profit before this month is over. Spiderman3 opens up a huge summer filled with big name movies and opens it well.

Ratings:

IMDB Film Rating: User Rating: 7.9/10 (4,503 votes)

- For a movie going experience I give it: 3 out of 5 stars.
Spiderman3 is more about the story then the action. It has a message it wants to convey and it manages to pull it off. Albeit the road to the end is twisted and sometimes even convoluted it does play out.

- For a technical piece of CG and VFX work I give it: 3 out of 5 stars.
There's not as much action and VFX as I was expecting, not by half for a 140 minute comic book action movie. Yet thanks to a few rare and brilliant scenes it was worth my time and money. If your going for the VFX you'll be more then satisfied thanks to the opening credits and the genesis of Sandman scene.

Credits:

Cast:
Spider-Man/Peter Parker - Tobey Maguire
Mary Jane Watson - Kirsten Dunst
New Goblin/Harry Osborn - James Franco
Sandman/Flint Marko - Thomas Haden Church
Venom/Eddie Brock - Topher Grace
Gwen Stacy - Bryce Dallas Howard
May Parker - Rosemary Harris
J. Jonah Jameson - J.K. Simmons
Captain Stacy - James Cromwell
Emma Marko - Theresa Russell
Dr. Curt Connors - Dylan Baker
Joseph 'Robbie' Robertson - Bill Nunn
Miss Brant - Elizabeth Banks
Uncle Ben Parker - Cliff Robertson
Hoffman - Ted Raimi

Director - Sam Raimi

Writing credits: Screenplay - Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Alvin Sargent
Story & Screen Story - Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi

Executive Producers - Joseph M. Caracciolo, Kevin Feige, Stan Lee
Producers - Avi Arad, Grant Curtis, Laura Ziskin

Cinematography - Bill Pope

Film Editing - Bob Murawski

Original Music - Christopher Young

Visual FX:
CafeFX
Digital Dream
Evil Eye Pictures
Furious FX
Giant Killer Robots
Halon
New Deal Studios Inc
Pixel Liberation Front
SPI
Tweak Films
zoogloo

MPAA:Rated Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence.
Runtime: 140 min