Threequels

Do I get to do movie reviews on here? Oh, wait. It's a blog! I get to do whatever I want!

Ah, creative freedom!

So I went to see Spiderman 3 the other night. Never before have I been so solidly kicked in the face and the butt at the same time. Never before have I had such mixed feelings about a movie.

A few things of note.

First of all, visually, this was the best movie ever made. The fight sequences made the Matrix look like a couple of sissies standing around and slapping at each other. I mean, when Peter and Harry took it to the air and fought, it was so sharp, so Silver Age, I wanted to cry. (even Scott Kurtz, who hated the movie, admitted that the moment when Peter was swinging around that tower firing web balls at Harry moved him)

Secondly, visually, I never believed they could pull Venom off. A big hulking version of Spiderman with a gaping maw and pointy teeth? No way. It would look silly!

It didn't look silly.

And emo-Spidey! I was expecting them to pull it seriously, to act like he really was all that with black hair down in his eyes. To act like we were supposed to be afraid of that. Instead, they made it hilarious. I have no words for how funny that was.

And Bruce Campbell made his best cameo yet as a French waiter. I mean, French. Capital F. He stole his scene with pizaaz.

And now, the negative news.

In terms of character development this movie was bogged down and constipated. It inched. It missed its marks. It threw away some great moments and replaced them with mediocre moments. For every great shot they threw in something less convincing. (JJJ was, of course, awesome; even better than last movie, and he ROCKED last movie)

Here's the thing. Sub-par superhero movies are slow and have too little plot. S3 went the other way. It overloaded the plot. It INUNDATED you with plot. There was so much, and so little time.

BTW, I was unsure as to how the final fight would go. The trailers let us know that Spidey was going to have to team up with a villain to fight two villains. "I need your help." That was a given.

But every single villain in this movie has been played sympathetically. Everybody knows Venom hates Spidey, but doesn't really hate other people. He can be an okay guy. Everybody knows Sandman is a good guy... he's just had some bad luck. And Harry? Everybody knows Harry is Pete's friend, even if he hates him now.

You could have gone any way you liked with it.

Incidentally, speaking of awesome visual effects; let's give a shout out to the team that made Sandman, shall we? The scene where he first pulls himself together is nothing short of magical. The pests I saw the movie with, who wouldn't stop laughing and talking, even shut up for that scene. And Thomas Haden Church is such a great actor (sigh)... he pulled it off. The Sandman was terrific.

Basically; this movie needed more time. It had great ideas, great concepts, but they rushed production. They didn't give it the time and development it needed.

It's a shame.

It's still better than any other franchise. S3 blew away anything in FF (at least the first one), any X-Men movie, anything Super. It just blew it away.

Sam Raimi's low point, his bad day, is still better than anything the competition is putting out.

So I'm completely divided on this movie. I KNOW it's flawed. I KNOW they could do better. I KNOW Gwen Stacy's role was wasted (although Bryce was certainly looking good... basically, I looked at her bottled blonde hair and Kirsten Dunst's bottled red hair, and I really wished they could switch places). I KNOW Topher Grace should have said 'we' at least once.

It was a good movie, but it could have great.

Well, here's hoping FF2 blows me away as much as S3 did.