By Ben Hyman

Gargoyle senior editor


Posted Friday, May 4, 2007, The OG, arts

MOST PEOPLE HEAR about movies the normal way — word of mouth, perhaps, or the result of a massive advertising campaign. Not I.

I essentially camp out on the Apple movie trailers page. I've known about the “Spider-Man 3” movie for months now. I rewound the teaser promo and watched it several times when it first came out.

The visuals, even in the teaser, were amazing, and I knew I had to see the movie the first day it came out (something I rarely ever do, although I vaguely recall leaving middle school somewhat early to catch the first “Spider-Man” movie).

But this isn't a review of the teaser trailer. The opening credits were a series of flashbacks, to ensure that the movie remained accessible to those who hadn't seen the previous two. Yeah, all five of those people on the planet must have really appreciated it.

There are three main villains in the film: Harry Osborn aka “Green Goblin Jr.,” Eddie Brock aka Venom, and Flint Marko aka Sandman.

Here director Sam Raimi has bitten off more than he can chew. Managing a film with multiple villains is doable, but you lose the opportunity for the complex character development that you see in “Spider-Man 2” with Doc Ock, for example.

Harry Osborn as the second Green Goblin is already known to us, and Venom's desire for Spider-Man's death is explained as simple revenge. Sandman, who is seen early on breaking out of jail and visiting his sick daughter, has a real chance to make a complex villain, but there's simply not enough time to reveal his character, competing for screen time as he does against the two other villains. Actor Thomas Haden Church does his best, however.

The Spider-Man series debuted in the early 1960s, and was immediately a huge hit because, unlike the Superman of the previous decades, Peter Parker was a regular human endowed with special powers, but still with regular human troubles.

The third movie shows a Spider-Man adored by the public, and a Parker fighting his own inner darkness (partly the result of arrogance). After being infected by an alien symbiote magnifying aggressiveness and manifesting itself as a suit, Parker turns dark, into a “Black Spider-Man.”

This point in the movie took far too long to get to. The meteor the symbiote was attached to fell out of the sky near the very beginning of the movie, but Spider-Man was not infected until about an hour into the movie.

The idea was simply put on pause while other issues, notably Sandman's creation and an attack by Osborn, were fleshed out. Though I enjoyed seeing these parts, perhaps an earlier infection would have been better.

The new suit is seen to have a deleterious effect on Parker's morals, but the 20 minutes where this behavior is shown is laughably lame. Someone should tell Raimi that an upbeat jazz-like tune, a poor comb-over, and an overly flirty bad-boy Parker do not a bad guy make. These scenes could have been far more powerful if Raimi had really experimented with a dangerous Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Of course, long before the end Spider-Man comes to his senses and, in a visually compelling scene, removes the suit.

He seeks redemption from his Aunt May, but again, if he had sunk lower in the first place, these scenes would have been far more dramatic. Considering that Spider-Man's battle with his own darkness is an essential theme of the movie, the flimsiness of his portrayal as a morally decrepit man significantly undercuts the movie.

The score was consistent with that from the other two movies, and was used pretty effectively to create the mood, except in the morally depraved scenes as noted above. A simple, menacing undertone during those scenes would have dramatically improved the movie.

Relating heavily to parts of the first “Spider-Man” movie, “Spider-Man 3” relied on flashbacks to illustrate the connection. This, along with the need to create some background for the three villains plus development of Peter Parker and his love interest Mary Jane, sometimes creates a choppy effect, but you see the same thing in other movies with multiple subplots like “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.”

Kirsten Dunst portrays Mary Jane Watson and her problems well enough that you start to feel sorry for her, and J.K Simmons and Bruce Campbell provide some excellent comic relief as Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson and a maître d' in one memorable scene, respectively.

Undoubtedly the best part of the movie was the visual effects. All the fight scenes were very well done, and I especially enjoyed watching Sandman's creation and Spidey rid himself of the symbiotic suit. I would see the movie again for nothing else other than that. Heck, I even enjoyed the opening credits.

I didn't go into this movie expecting any surprises, but there was a rather big one that I didn't pick up on until near the end. This led to a feel-good ending that made the movie more enjoyable, and helped make up, at least a little bit, for Sandman's unsatisfying end. I won't ruin it for you, and I do urge you all to see the movie yourselves.

Sequels are rarely noted for their excellence in plot and character development; “Spider-Man 2” was the exception that proved the rule, and “Spider-Man 3” unfortunately seems to follow the same pattern. You shouldn't expect another “Spider-Man 2,” but the movie was certainly enjoyable as the first “summer” blockbuster of the year. It will almost certainly be a record-setting movie, based on its opening performance in the foreign markets.

“Spider-Man 3” is playing at the Beverly 18 and Savoy 16. For showtimes at both theaters, click here. Runtime: 140 minutes. Rated: PG-13.

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— External link: The film's official site