From the Desk of the Liquid Engineer

I caught the 1:55 showing of Spider-Man 3 with a friend yesterday. I don’t trust myself to write an in-depth review without being entirely too spoilerific, but I figured I could share a few thoughts.

Plot spoilers follow, so read at your own risk.

Overall impression: 3.7 out of 5

How did we get to this point?

Every Spider-Man movie has seemed to have a strong overarching question at its core that the story tries to solve. The first was simple: What would happen if a geeky kid got superpowers? It really just covers the initial stage of learning why such powers must be used responsibly (a difficult lesson in Peter’s case) and the idea of heroic self-sacrifice as crucial.

The second film expands on these ideas and stabilizes them. In the first film Peter accepted that there must be consequences and trade-offs, but in the second he’s taken this to an extreme to the point where everything’s coming apart around him. The idea here is to show how a superhero must strike a healthy compromise between his heroic duties, friends, family, love life, and his own personal needs. It’s no good to be a selfless lonely champion if you burn yourself out. By the end of the movie Peter seems to have learned this lesson well, which leads us into Spider-Man 3, which might as well be called a psychological drama.

When SM3 opens, it’s immediately obvious that Peter has reached a point of balance between his normal and heroic lives that was not present in the first two films. He’s happy and fulfilled and doing quite well in his relationship with Mary Jane. His movements and fighting style are smoother, more intricate, and more complex: he’s learned a lot since the first movie, and he’s finally starting to really resemble the capable hero we comic-book fans are on such good terms with.

Where are we, exactly?

And that’s actually the problem: things are going too well for him. In the continuity of the movies, from the death of his uncle to this point Peter has never really lost a fight. He’s managed to save his aunt and MJ every time they were threatened, and things have generally gone his way.

This has led him to have one trait his comic-book counterpart (who seems to suffer one personal disaster after another) does not. He’s just a bit too proud, and a bit too arrogant and overconfident. He’s a great hero, to be sure, but I think it’s important to remember that true heroes will never give themselves that label. This movie, I think, is concerned with the final bit of Peter’s metamorphosis into a more complete Spider-Man: the realization that he is not always right or infallible, that he will make mistakes and terrible things will happen, and he will have to learn to forgive both himself and those who’ve wronged him, and acknowledge those he himself has wrong. It is, in short, a critical and necessary re-affirmation of his humanity.

Yet, one does not simply wake-up and realize they have lost touch with their human side. For this to happen Peter must be brought very low, and this explains the movie’s dark tone. Events, some his own making and some not, systematically combine to tear his happy life to shreds, and Peter is too out of touch with himself and those around him to recognize the dangers, instead allowing himself to descend into his own darkness. This movie is as much about the fight between Peter and his inner demons as it is about Spidey and his latest rogues, and neither fight is very pretty. The tone is dark as pitch in places, and if you’re anything like me you’ll be sitting there trying to mentally convince our hero not to travel down his current path. Even the moment in which he comes back to the light is painful, as its set in motion by a rather shocking, painful-to-watch event. But he does, and in the end a more stable, humble hero emerges.

Diamonds in the Rough

As usual for Spidey movies, this one is made by the minor characters that help compose Peter’s universe. Parker’s landlord and his daughter stuck out particuarly in my mind. She’s actually one of my top five favorite characters at this point, and she can’t have spoken more than 1000 words in the last three films. JJ Jameson is continuing to be developed as a grey, nicer-than-he-wants-to-admit character, as opposed to the one-dimensional jerk he’s so often presented as in other mediums (especially the Spider-Man animated series). I really like that. Eddie Brock (Venom) is delightfully unsympathetic and smarmy even before he becomes completely evil, and his attempts to compete professionally with Peter provide some very interesting moments. After seeing the movie, I really like the Sandman, who I wasn’t familiar with before I saw the film. I had read some other reviews that painted him as too simplistic and flat, but I don’t think that’s it at all. He is, indeed, a simple man–not the larger than life characters we’re used to after seeing Doc Ock, Harry, and the Green Goblin–with a simple, laudable mission. Given the effect he has on Peter and vice-versa, he’s arguably one of the most important characters in any of the three films. Harry Osborne is believable both as evil incarnate and penitent hero. Without these interesting characters to blunt the impact, watching Peter struggle with his own darkness might have been too overpowering. May Parker was her usual powerful, understated self, and as usual we didn’t see nearly enough of her.

Visuals and Effects

As usual, these were all stunning. Things in Peter’s New York were bright and alive and just seemed to jump off the screen…except for when they needed to be moody and dark. Then they left you feeling like there was a cloud hanging over the theatre. The soundtrack is likewise excellent.

Negatives

The ending is rather abrupt, and leaves the status of Peter and MJ’s relationship somewhat vague. As usual, the writers killed off a character or two that I didn’t think really needed to die. At this point I want a Spider-Man 4 not for the sake of itself, but because I feel there are a few loose ends that really, really need to be tied up. This would be a terrible movie to end the franchise on. Harry Osborne’s character was also sadly underused. I would have liked to have seen more of him, and I’m not at all pleased with his role in the finale. He’s essentially written out of any future sequels at this point, which is a shame when his character obviously had so much potential.

Worth seeing?

If you’re a Spider-Man fan, the answer is a definite yes. The Harry Osborne stuff alone is worth the price of admission, as the path taken with him is quite different from the one in comic book canon. As I said above, it’s a different sort of Spidey movie, so it’ll be a different experience than the first two. The tone is significantly darker, the violence more brutal, and some of the things Peter does while under the influence of the Venom symbiote are more than slightly questionable–there was more than one spot where I cringed–and it’s a bit slower paced. If you’re considering taking a little one to see this film, think carefully about it. The PG-13 rating is well deserved, and it’s closer to R than PG, in my opinion. If you think your child is too young to see violence that leaves physical scars or excessive brutality, or people with serious relationship issues, this probably is not the film for them.

[tags]spider-man, spider man, spiderman, spider-man 3, spiderman 3, spider man 3, review, movie review[/tags]

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