Here, I posted this on my Myspace film page. Definite Spoilers. It's a full review, let me know what you think --- UGH!!!!!
Every now and then (actually, more often than not), we at Chicken and Pizza (or maybe just me), can predict the future.
I predict we are seeing the beginning of the end of the comic book movie genre. I’ll go into more detail.
In 1997, Marvel Comics, finally, released their first palpable, major motion picture attempt, "Blade." It surprised everyone --- critics and the box office.
Marvel's success with that open the floodgate for a long list of beloved properties that had never made it to the big screen.
Next came "X-Men (2000), Marvel's biggest property, which didn't "wow" critics but proved to studios that the comic book movie genre was very lucrative.
Then came the benchmark, "Spider-Man" (2002). Already considered a possible blockbuster, that film was MONSTEROUSLY successful. Marvel was the new darling for Hollywood's exploitative purposes.
Flash forward 10 years. All three franchises went onto have amazing second installments, both critical and financial successes. The fans were happy and so was Hollywood. Then, each film went to third installments. First was "Blade Trinity," a colossally stupid mess, brought on by greedy performers and a confused production. Then came "X-Men 3: The Last Stand." Halle Berry's constant demands and, Director Bryan Singer's departure soured the whole thing. 2 of the 3 films that started the genre back up had, disappointingly and drastically, bowed out.
But there was always the "Spider-Man" franchise. The 2nd film was a box office giant and, not quite appropriately, the most well-reviewed film of it's year. All the cast were back and, fanboy/director Sam Raimi, jumped right into production on the 3rd film after 2.
It's always the movies you look to the most that disappoint you some how.
Spider-Man 3 is a letdown. No film could have lived up to the critical darling that second film had become, but the third movie doesn't even feel like it exist in the same realm as Spider-Man 2 or 1. It's messy, over-saturated with wandering plot points and too cheesy for even IT'S own good.
Director Sam Raimi, now makes my short list of directors who get the keys to the castle and burn it down. Peter Jackson, suffered from it with "King Kong," Bryan Singer suffered from it with "SuperMan Returns." Over-indulgence, on Raimi's part has killed the Spider-Man movie.
The films have had a fairly strong amount of cheese, sometimes unbearable (a fact that alot of critics seems to be only now discovering), but Raimi bloats the film with cornball nonsense. Actress, Kirsten Dunst gets two musical numbers, Tobey Maguire has a dance routine, and there is a big Spider-Man parade in the middle of the film that is hard to even watch.
The plot, is like a game of connect-the-dots for Raimi and his brother (who wrote this film as opposed to the award winning screenwriter, novelist and television producers who wrote the second movie), who have characters barely interact but write them as having relationships somewhere outside the plot.
Here's how it goes, Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) goes to school with Gwen Stacy, who is dating Eddie Brock, who works with Peter at the Daily Bugle as a freelance photgrapher. Peter wants to get engaged to Mary Jane but kisses Gwen Stacy as Spider-Man. Mary Jane, runs off and, in a scene that is time-displaced with swing music, kisses Harry Osborn. Harry Osborn, who thinks Peter killed his father, has amnesia after Peter fights him as Spider-Man. All this angst allows an alien symbiote to merge with Peter, who thinks Flint Marko/Sandman has murdered his Uncle Ben, but Flint Marko really just once to get his daughter a cure for some unnamed disease she has. Flint teams up with Eddie (yeah, there is a Supervillian team-up), who merged with the alien symbiote after Peter got rid of it when he attacks Mary Jane on a date with Gwen Stacy, whose father Captain Stacy is in-charge of the case on Flint Marko, who didn't really murder Peter's Uncle, just like Peter didn't really murder Harry's father who was the Green Goblin. Whic by the way apparently the butler always knew and neglected to tell Harry until it's convenient for the plot.
A mess.
And the only people who seem to be trying to work with this mess, are the actors most neglected in the previous films, that is, Rosemary Harris, James Franco, and Kirsten Dunst. Tobey Maguire, is upstaged by a much more impressive, Topher Grace who, admittedly, should have been cast as the title character. Everyone else is inconsequential to the plot despite being shoe-horned in.
Even, the effects are muddled. Most of the action, takes place at night, and is completely indecipherable. There is one scene that features the creation of Sandman that is amazing --- if it had been in a better film.
Spider-Man, as a movie, represented a better, more contemplative breed of super-hero film. One that, despite it's past problems, was an equally human and visceral approach to the genre than what we had been accustomed to even prior to "BatMan and Robin" in 1997. Unfortunately, this, combined with Marvel's last crop of films goes the way of the Bat-nipples.
-Chicken |
