untitled
SPIDER-MAN
3
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Written by: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Alan Sargent
Internet
Movie
Database Entry for full details
GRADE: B+
2007.
The fanboys and the critical establishment have teamed-up, in a rare display of unity, against Spider-Man 3,
and not entirely without good reason—in all fairness, it is too
long, or rather, depending on how you want to look at it, perhaps not
long enough, as it has so many characters and storylines that they all
arrive, ultimately, at haphazard and careless resolutions; packing
about two movies worth into just one leaves a single film that often
feels perfunctorily plotted. It's true, Spider-Man 3 is
sloppy, but what's problematic in terms of storytelling is easily
glossed over, and the film emerges as gratifying and engaging enough on
basic levels to pass muster as exceptional divertissement.
While the first two Spiderman films were as centered around their
supervillains as their anthroparachnoid hero, in a manner dangerously
close to the faulted style of the ‘90s Batman films, the third
focuses the bulk of its attention on the romantic relationship between
Peter Parker and Mary Jane. (By doing so, however, it never finds the
time to satisfactorily tie its threads together.) That’s not to
say the film is for want of action, though, as it regularly bursts into
fights and web-slinging flights, but Thomas Hayden Church, as Sandman,
and Topher Grace as Eddie Brock/Venom have, actually, largely marginal
roles. Primarily, they just seem there to provide a bit of,
respectively, action packing and comic relief. It’s unfortunate,
because they’re both (surprisingly for Grace) adept in their
roles, more in the tradition of Alfred Molina’s tempered turn as
Dr. Octopus in the second film and not, thankfully, in the opposing
tradition of the first film's campy, movie-spoiling Green Goblin,
courtesy of Willem Dafoe. Grace is a palpable prick as Brock, Parker's
professional rival, although far less convincing as a serpent-toothed
Venom; and Church uses his sonorous voice and emotive eyes, familiar
from his performance in Broken Trail, to great effect, adding
depth to his otherwise lackadaisically developed character—an
escaped convinct turned man-made-of-sand after a run-in with a
carelessly placed "particle atomizer". James Franco, as Harry/Green
Goblin fils, takes a conking to the noggin early in the film
and it, conveniently, gives him amnesia; he forgets his homicidal
contempt for Spiderman, a gift not only for his arch-nemesis Peter
Parker but for the audience as well—the hit seems to have loosed
Franco from the spell of uninteresting acting he’s been under the
last couple of years, welcomely abandoning, for the bulk of the movie,
his grumbly pout for a wide smile.
That grin is a lead the audience is meant to follow, if they can bring themselves to lighten up as much as the film has. Though Spider-Man 3
is centered on Parker and MJ’s potentially depressing
relationship woes, and has its share of what Noel Murray snidely calls
Important Conversations, it rarely takes itself too seriously. When an
"alien symbiote" attaches itself to Spiderman’s suit, he, and
Parker, are taken to the dark side, but Raimi’s concept of an
evil transformation is not quite on par with, say, George
Lucas’—it consists mainly of dressing like a moody emo
hipster—nice bangs—and getting his neighbor to bake him
trays of cookies while he chugs a big glass of milk. Spoiling his
appetite—what would Aunt May think!? (His badass routine
culminates in a ridiculous sequence in a jazz club, which reminded me
of the “Remains of the Day” sequence from Corpse Bride, in which Pete upstages Mary Jane by dancing as though participating in a Zoot Suit riot.) Many of Spider-Man 3's
detractors have accused it of being unintentionally hilarious, but it
seems clear enough to me that it's meant to be funny. Raimi brings the
charm of the original comics to the film's foreground, capturing the
lighthearted spirit that comic books possessed before they became
serious and respectable "graphic novels". Spider-Man 3 hardly
attempts to be credibly weighty; it's silly, hokey, kitschy and sappy,
devoid of all nuance in favor of a blithe spirit of gee-whizery. (Stan
Lee, the man himself, has a charming little cameo, and Bruce
Campbell’s appearance as a maître d’ is hilarious,
lightening the mood of what would otherwise have been a gloomy scene.)
But Spider-Man 3, for its simple pleasures, is still not as
wholly fatuous as I've made out to be; in fact, it subtly packs a
rather devious message beneath its puerile superficies. The Spiderman
franchise's third installment spills a bit of subtle 9/11 imagery onto
the streets of New York: a runaway crane slices through a skyscraper
like a hijacked airplane, and Sandman as a traveling cloud of sand
whipping around street corners recalls collapsed-WTC-tower dust
billowing through downtown. Like Saw III, though not as dreadful or ineffective, Spider-Man 3
is about the virtue of forgiveness; "You want forgiveness? Get
religion," Peter Parker snaps malevolently during his dark period, but:
Pete can’t get MJ back unless she forgives his stupid mistakes;
Harry can't regain his sanity until he forgives Spiderman for the death
of his father; Brock will be vanquished by the symbiote unless he
forgives Parker for costing him his job; and, most importantly, Pete
can’t move on as a man, spider or otherwise, until he is able to
forgive the person who killed his uncle. As Aunt May tells Peter, who
wants Mary Jane to marry him, a good husband must learn to put his wife
ahead of himself; but as long as Pete is consumed by a need for
vengeance, his relationship with MJ continues to crumble.
Near the film's end, Spiderman is photographed, with Raimi's tongue
stuck firmly in cheek, against a large American flag, and when coupled
with the 9/11 imagery Raimi seems, finally, to be suggesting that the
U.S., with Spiderman as its representative hero, might be a stronger
nation if it, along with its familiar ass-kicking, did a little
other-cheek turning every once in a while. "Revenge is like a poison,"
Aunt May tells Peter; despite all its violence, Spider-Man 3 is a call for peace.
--
Henry Stewart
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