Spider-Man 3 begins amid what could be called the Golden Age of
the Wall Crawler. Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is about to propose to his
life-long love, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), who’s on the verge of making her
debut in a Broadway show. Spider-Man has finally been accepted by the people of
New York as being their hero--with the exception of J. Jonah Jameson (the always
great J.K. Simmons), of course. Although the hot-headed editor of the Daily Bugle
must now try and control his legendary temper these days, due to health reasons,
his hatred for Spider-Man has not diminished one bit.
Another person who hates
Spider-Man is Harry Osborne (the solid James Franco), who blames the Web-Slinger
for the death of his father, and who has taken on the mantle of the Green Goblin
in his quest for vengeance. In the opening battle between the new Green Goblin
and a caught-off-guard Peter, director Sam Riami gives the usual tensions a nice
dramatic twist, as the viewer becomes concerned with the whereabouts of Peter’s
lost engagement ring. At this point in the film, I thought things were going very well. Riami had
carefully balanced both the comic book action and soap opera angst which had become
the trademark of the Spider-Man comics.
Even when we’re introduced to Flint
Marko, an escaped convict who soon gains formidable superpowers as the Sandman,
things are still rolling along very nicely. But once that annoying little oil
slick from outer space hitches a ride aboard Peter’s moped, that’s pretty much
when the smooth ride of Spider-Man 3 comes to a crashing halt. The new Green
Goblin is a story well-worth telling, and it deserved more attention than it
got here. Harry Osborne’s tale had
begun along side Peter’s in the first Spider-Man, and sailed through the second
Spider-Man film like a great submerged beast under the troubled waters of the
Doctor Octopus storyline.
And now, Harry’s tale has finally risen to a crescendo
that can no longer be ignored. James Franco’s superb acting skills expertly
convey the battleground raging within his mind between sanity and the insane lust
for revenge symbolized by his crazed father. And the Sandman was a marvelous choice--both the character, as
well as the actor who portrays him--as a new menace for the third film. Thomas
Haden Church poignantly shows the desperation of Flint Marko, as well as the
love he has for his young daughter. And the special effects that show the
shape-shifting Sandman in action are marvelous.
The main misstep here is the presence of Venom, that annoying little oil slick
from space, which grows up to become a big bad whazzit that menaces Spidey. When
you take Venom, along with Gwen Stacy and her boyfriend Eddie Brock, Spiderman 3
just becomes overloaded with far too many characters. The Sandman deserved to be
the central villain of this piece, with the Harry Osborne story serving as a
thrilling subplot. Instead, Spider-Man 3 gets bogged down with silly scenes of
Peter Parker "possessed" by the oil slick and acting out like John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever. When Venom finally appears, it’s very late in the
proceedings, and he feels more like an uninvited guest than the major threat
that he’s supposed to be. Spider-Man 3 isn’t a horrible film by any means, it’s
just misguided by a script that tries to cram too many things in all at once,
and the result is a bogged down film. Hopefully, whoever directs the fourth
installment will return to having a single central villain to vex the Web-Slinger. --SF
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