Life is good for Peter Parker (Toby Maguire). The city loves Spider-Man, he’s earning money, doing well in school and he’s planning to marry the love of his life Mary-Jane Watson (Kirstin Dunst). However, it seems that he’s still on the receiving end of much loathing from Harry Osborne (James Franco) who still believes Peter murdered his father and as new super-villain Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) enters the fray it doesn’t take long for everything to go wrong for Spidey.
It’s natural to feel scared when you get to the third film in a series. Quite frankly, they usually suck in comparison to the first and second. For every Goldfinger, there must be one hundred Superman III’s. For every Return of the King there must be one thousand The Godfather: Part III’s. And don’t get me started on the X-Men: The Last Stand. So how does Spider-Man 3 stand in comparison to the first two? It’s hard to explain, as rather than turning to greatness or downright awfulness it comes out as a bit of a mixed bag.
Firstly, we’ll start with what Spider-Man 3 does right. It seems as if the bad dialogue from the first film is never coming back as the writing throughout Spider-Man 3 is steady. The action scenes never fall short of pure genius and long gone are the frustrating ‘experimental’ transitions from Spider-Man 2. Unfortunately, you need to sit through about 30 minutes to really see this.The film starts out with some narration from your friendly neighbourhood photographer who masquerades as a super-hero whenever trouble arises: Peter Parker. Everything seems pretty good for about 10 minutes. We get the impression that everything is fine and dandy for Pete. And then everything starts to go wrong. We immediately see Harry walk out of the gas chamber that almost claimed his father’s life back in the first film as calm as can be and approach some altered Goblin gear. However the problem here is that there is no intricate preparation. This chemical almost killed Norman Osborne (who makes a brief appearance later, once more played by Willem Dafoe) and seems to have driven him insane, but for some reason it’s done nothing of the sort for Harry. So, he may have altered it. But this is the kid who depended upon Peter frequently in High School. Generally, the feeling is that the introduction of this New Goblin feels too rushed. Spider-Man 3 is a long film (clocking in at 1hour 28 minutes) but I can’t help but feel that 5 minutes preparation before jumping in would have been useful.
That said, there is no time wasted with the first action scene. Starting about 20 minutes in (as opposed to the first two not having set pieces this large for at least 40 minutes) it’s surprisingly dark. There’s little warning as to how dangerous it will get and the jokes that kept the second film rolling are remarkably scarce. Not that the lack of jokes are a bad thing. The scene has great pacing and really manages to build up suspense, which is rare so soon in a movie of this calibre.
On the subject of humour I think that it’s time we look at the key players of Spider-Man 3. All the regulars are back. J.K. Simmons is once more J. Jonah Jameson, the fierce Daily Bugle editor who appears to have been tamed, not by a super-hero, nor by his wife but by high blood sugar. Although, as ever, his scenes are scarce, in Spider-Man 3 we see a few newer sides to him. One of restrain, humility and honesty. Throughout the series, we’ve been seeing more to Jameson than is expected (trying to protect Parker from the Goblin in Spider-Man; admitting New York needs Spider-Man in Spider-Man 2) and here we learn that although he hates Spider-Man, he’s at least honest about any material he produces.
Naturally, it wouldn’t be a Spider-Man film if the king of cameos, Bruce Campbell didn’t show up. In what is easily the funniest scene in the film, Bruce is, as ever hilarious as the French Waiter. It really does go to show how a simple joke can eclipse entire movies (here’s looking at you Little Man). And how could I not mention the immortal Stan Lee. Once again picking up a cameo, this is the only one so far that he has referred to as his best cameo.
It may seem obvious to mention that the cinematography continues to move forward in new and exciting ways but it does. Most noticeably with the Super-Villains, the camera movements are vivid and rather exciting. Where the music is concerned, it really shows where long time composer Danny Elfman hasn’t been involved. Christopher Young does a good job but it shows where Elfman has helped.
The CG doesn’t immediately appear to have improved from Spider-Man 2 a great deal but when new villain, the Sandman appears it really shows where the $250 million went. It looks absolutely incredible. The individual grains of sand are perfectly visible and it seems absolutely astonishing to think that it was all done with computer effects rather than actually mutating an actor.
As everyone knows, the previous Spider-Man films have been above creating ‘evil’ characters as such. The Goblin was turned insane and Doc Ock was controlled by his ‘arms’. Thankfully, Raimi doesn’t take the easy option in Spider-Man 3. The Sandman’s completely aware of everything he does, but it seems that all he’s trying to do is save his daughter. The scene in which this is revealed is a very touching one and stands out as a glimmer of light amongst the overall dark subject matter of the film.
Naturally, everyone knows about the black suit already. As a metaphor, it works wonders to portray Peter’s continuing sins. It starts with pride, and who could blame him? With the whole city on his side, who wouldn’t be proud? But as Peter’s personality and responses darken, so does the suits attraction to him. Needless to say, it isn’t long until Peter Parker is in fully fledged ‘emo’ mode. However, regardless of the meaning the middle section of the film with Peter embracing his dark self feels a little overlong and a bit cheesy.
Maybe that’s why the final 30 minutes seem so great though.
Although the beginning is sketchy and the emo-mode scenes are pushing it slightly, the ending is just breathtaking. It’s a return to everything Spider-Man stands for and frankly just puts everything back in its place. To say anymore would be unfair but it is a serious contender for the title of greatest Super-Hero ending ever.
Spider-Man 3 is a rollercoaster that explores the characters well enough for the rushed beginning and awkward emo scenes to be forgiven. But the final 20 minutes are what really put it in its place as a Spider-Man film. Not as good as Spider-Man 2 but better than Spider-Man, this is a suitable end to a great trilogy.
4/5
Monday 7 May 2007
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