So I marathoned the Spider-Man trilogy again today.
I'm only going to comment on Spider-Man 3 right now, as I don't think I need to reiterate yet AGAIN on how much I love the first two movies: Seriously. It's not a bad movie. It is fully undeserving of being on "worst" lists, if you ask me. I understand why the film isn't one's cup of tea, and I understand how people were disappointed because the movie definitely COULD have been better had Sony just allowed Raimi to do what he wanted ... But the utter vitriol it gets kind of bewilders me.
My biggest issues with the film are the changes made to Uncle Ben's death (yes, it's still technically Peter's fault, but the "punch" of the situation is definitely weakened and I don't like it), the rushed Venom stuff (I thought Venom was fine, but he was definitely shoehorned), and the fact that Mary Jane was kidnapped again at the end (which gave us that dumb Bernard scene; Gwen should have been captured, and MJ should have been the one to convince Harry to help Peter). The end battle was still fun and interesting to watch, though.
All in all, though, I think there's a lot of good-to-great stuff in here, too. I enjoy pretty much all of the action scenes, I thought Sandman was great (sans the Uncle Ben stuff), I thought that Harry's story arc was very fitting and ended the way it should have (sans the dumb Bernard scene), I think the cast is likable, and the Peter/MJ drama worked for me. The quieter moments of the movie, like whenever Peter and Aunt May are on screen, are nice to watch too. My favorite scene of the entire movie for me is still the part when Peter visits Aunt May to tell her that he's going to propose to MJ. It's charming as heck, and it makes me all the more invested in the fights happening on the screen, which brings me to another point ...
Spider-Man 3, with all of its flaws, still manages to make me care about what's happening on the screen ... Especially during the action scenes (which is a helluva lot more than what I can say about so many comic book films that come out today). Considering how many overall big blockbuster movies are hot garbage nowadays, Spider-Man 3 looks pretty fantastic by comparison ... Warts and all. The movie was trying to do too much, and some unnecessary things were shoehorned into it, but ... I've never found myself watching Spider-Man 3 and thinking, "I don't care what's happening. Blah blah blah superheroes punching and explosions. Doomsday device, blah blah blah." EDIT: Also, with the themes of revenge versus forgiveness, the movie tried to MEAN something other than just punching and fighting.
My husband watched all three movies with me today, and I discovered that this had been his very first time seeing Spider-Man 3. His reaction? He found that the silly stuff (the dancing, for example) was legitimately funny, and that the action was really cool. He also said "aww" at a few parts (like when Aunt May gave Peter her ring, the "Birth of Sandman" sequence, and when Peter and MJ started to slow dance at the end). When the credits started rolling, he said, "THIS was the 'worst movie ever' that everyone had been telling me about? What?"
