Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Genre

Action | Adventure

Director

Sam Raimi

Country

USA

Cast

Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, James Cromwell, Theresa Russell, Dylan Baker, Bill Nunn, Elizabeth Banks, Ted Raimi, Perla Haney-Jardine, Willem Dafoe, Cliff Robertson, Elya Baskin, Mageina Tovah, Michael Papajohn, Joe Manganiello, Stan Lee

Storyline

Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has finally managed to balance life as both Spider-Man and as Mary-Jane's (Kirsten Dunst) boyfriend. But when a strange black entity from another world bonds with him and causes inner turmoil as he contends with new villains, and revenge.

Opinion

Your friendly neighborhood web-slinger is back, only this time he is shineless. As happened - and will keep on happening - with other trilogies, Spider-Man 3 is a disappointing closing chapter. It is way too ambitious and doesn't accomplish anything.

First of all, the writing: there are way too many characters and even if the film was four hours long, there wouldn't be enough time for all of them. There is definitely too much going on for one sitting.

The New Goblin's aka Harry Osborn conflict with Spider-Man might be interesting, but it's just thrown into the story, and Harry's continuous attitude changes are pretty annoying. He seeks revenge for his father's 'murder' by Spider-Man, then he is Peter's best friend, then again he wants to kill him, and at the end they are friends again. 

The same problem occurs with Sandman. Firstly he is made to look like a good guy, then bad, and then good again. And at the end, we don't even know what to think about him. Should we fear him, or feel sorry for him?

Let's move to Venom. He is one of Spider-Man's main enemies and my favourite villain. Also everybody loves him, and that's how he got a part in the film. Unfortunately, he has just a tiny amount of screen time, and that incredibly let me down.

Lastly, Gwen Stacy. She doesn't contribute much in the film, she only serves as a mean to separate MJ and Peter.

The musical score isn't that brilliant. Some parts are ok, but some parts are so bad to ruin the scene. Also, there is too much dancing and singing going on. 

Luckily, there are still some good aspects. The action sequences are brilliantly done and visually beautiful. The CGI is fantastically used, particularly in the creation of Sandman and Venom.

The acting is quite shocking. Despite the extraordinary and hilarious performance by J.K. Simmons, which steals every scene he is in, and the quite good portrayal of Sandman by Thomas Haden Church, the rest of the cast isn't good at all. 

Tobey Maguire is very disappointing. He should have worked better on the black Spider-Man, because he wasn't very good at being bad. And he did look like the retarded version of John Travolta while dancing. 

I didn't think it was possible, but James Franco's performance is even worse that in the previous films. Kirsten Dunst is apparently very good at screaming, and very bad at singing. Topher Grace was just not the right person to portrait Venom.

Quotes

Peter Parker: Whatever comes our way, whatever battle we have raging inside us, we always have a choice. My friend Harry taught me that. He chose to be the best of himself. It's the choices that make us who we are, and we can always choose to do what's right.