Intro/Review of Spider Man 3

Greetings everybody, and welcome to my weekly film review! First, let me give a little personal info about me. I'm a 31 year old guy who lives in Lawrenceville, GA, which is right outside of downtown Atlanta. I'm originally from Arkansas(yes there are black people in Arkansas, and no I'm not from Little Rock). This is my first attempt at blogging and I'm not really that much of a great writer, so if my posts don't seem like some great literary work, then too damn bad!!! LOL!! Nah, on the real, I'm sure I'll get better at this thing in due time, so ya'll just bear with me on my journey.

Now, I consider myself a lover of movies, but I may not be classified as a film buff. There are still plenty of movies that I have yet to see(The Usual Suspects, L.A. Confidential, The Godfather Part 2), so I'm still playing a bit of the catch up game. I just recently saw The Color Purple for the first time(you may revoke my black card now) and just before that, I finally saw the cinematic masterpiece known as The Godfather. Give me time, and I'm sure I'll be able to quote lines from all sorts of movies and hang with the best of the best.

I've taken the time to come up with my own little rating system for the movies that I will be reviewing, and here it is:

4 stars: Jesus, Mary, and JoJo, this movie is off the chain! When does the DVD come out?!?!?
3 stars: The movie could have used some improvements, but I don't feel like I wasted my $9.50
2 stars: I should have waited for the bootleg
1 star: Who greenlighted this shit?????

Now, on to the main event: Back in 2002, director Sam Raimi gave comic book geeks and average moviegoers alike a treat with Spider Man. We all know the story of nerdy high school student Peter Parker who gets bitten by a spider and ends up developing spider like powers of his own. Raimi, a self professed comic book geek himself, really understood the characters and the story of this comic, and he made sure that the audience could identify with Peter's plight as he struggled to balance his regular life with his super hero duties. The first film made all kinds of money at the box office(I'm still waiting on my cut) and set the bar for all future comic book films. Willem Defoe chewed all kinds of scenery as The Green Goblin, and I felt that he was perfect for that role, plastic mask notwithstanding. The subsequent sequel raised that bar even higher with improved CGI, more internal conflict, and a better villian in the form of Doctor Octopus(Alfred Molina). When it came time for part 3, expectations were higher than gas prices in the state of California, and Raimi was supposed to deliver the goods. My response to the film......

Umm......err......meh......

Don't get me wrong;this is far from a bad movie. I didn't want to walk out and demand a refund from the manager, nor did I want to take the crying baby in aisle 5 and throw him/her at the screen halfway through the film. On second thought, I did want to take the crying baby in aisle 5 and throw him her at the screen, but that rant is for another day. The film is good, but when compared to the first two installments, part 3 fails to live up to all the hype, and that's mainly due to all of the stuff that Raimi crammed into it. At the start of this movie, life is finally getting good for Peter Parker(Tobey Maguire). The city of New York absolutely adores him as Spider-Man, and all the adulation goes to his head just a bit. He's finally in a relatonship with the love of his life, Mary Jane Watson(Kirsten "I need some sun" Dunst), but her career is headed down the crapper as she is fired from her Broadway musical, and she's not too happy about Peter's reaction. In addition to his domestic issues, Peter has to deal with a glut of villians. First is The Sandman(a woefully underused Thomas Haden Church) as a petty thief who falls into the middle of a science experiment, bonds with sand, and can do all sorts of tricks. Next is his best friend Harry Osborne(James Franco), who still thinks that Peter killed his father and uses his daddy's Green Goblin stash to create his own version of the Goblin. Oh, did I forget to mention the alien symbiote that come from space, bonds with Peter, and gives him an all black Spidey suit. Peter loves the feeling that the suit gives him, but it also makes him switch to "I don't give a fuck" mode(cue Lil John music). Peter manages to separate himself from the symbiote, which then bonds with disgraced reporter Eddie Brock(a surprisingly good Topher Grace) and turns him into the creature known as Venom.

This film would have been much better served had it focused on just one bad guy. Raimi was not a fan of Venom, but that's who the fans wanted to see, and he should have gotten way more screen time. The Sandman had some nice CGI work, but he really didn't serve much of a purpose. His character could have been developed much further, and some creative liberty was taken by having him involved with the murder of Peter's Uncle Ben. There was also the addition of another one of Peter's love interests from the comics: Gwen Stacy(Bryce Dallas Howard). She's a pretty major character, but the film doesn't do much with her either. The scenes where Peter is under the influence of the symbiote are a riot, especially when he's walking down the street, giving the ladies the eye, but a jazz club setting could have been left out. There's also a scene involving Harry's butler and some information that he should have given Harry way back in the first movie, but for whatever reason, he chooses now to tell him.

Overall, the action and CGI work balance out the shoddy script and the seemingly phoned in performances by some of the actors. I give this film 3 stars.