It's been nearly 4 years since Spider-Man 3 hit theaters and to this day, I am still in shock by just how bad the movie turned out to be. Not just because it was a bad film all around, but because it was the first time where a threequel had the same director, cast and writers + the budget and failed so badly. I can understand if a third is not as good as the first two because it's hard to keep a great franchise going and not everything can be successful. But for the movie just to be on an Ed Wood level and the first two movies were Raiders of the Lost Arc or Jurassic Park adventure level just boggles my mind. Maybe I am taking it to far to call Spider-Man 3 an Ed Wood film, but it's bad.
I was the biggest Spider-Man movie fan. I didn't have a lot of money, but the money that I earned went straight to merchandise for anything to do with Spider-man movies. The toys, the books, I even paid a lot of money for the original comic books back issues. I couldn't get enough. The first two movies were so great, I ranked them top ten of all time favorites and I've seen everything...
So I had a chance to go to New York while shooting for Spider-Man 3 was going on. I researched it and was sure Spider-Man 3 wasn't shooting at the time I was in NYC, but it was the only chance I had. I flew to NYC and found out the crew wasn't in NYC, but in fact they were shooting in Chicago to save money. The crappy part is a week after I had to return home for work, they began shooting in NYC where I was... But it's okay, at least I would get to see the most anticipated film of my life...
I woke up and checked the internet to find the debut of the Spider-Man 3 teaser trailer. I couldn't believe how good it looked. Everything I expected. Sandman, Eddie Brock, the return of James Franco, Kirsten Dunst and of course Tobey were all shown. It was incredible. Brock looked up at the bell tower and said 'Parker?' - I thought it was going to be the greatest movie in the history of movies.. I thought this trilogy could actually possibly top the orginial Star Wars trilogy. Sam Raimi was back, I trusted him to complete an amazing trilogy. Cast returned which is kind of rare since most of the main stars bail after one or two movies (Michael Keaton in Batman, etc).
I took off work the day of the movie. I was so excited and already bought so much Spider-Man 3 merchandise, it was embarrassing. I had the stupid Venom figure which was PURPLE, but whatever, I wasn't a fan of Spider-Man for the toys. I liked the tv cartoons, comics and movies. Whats the difference with the movies ? the cartoons and comics come out every week or month. The movies take 2-3 years!!
The opening credit sequence hit and I was excited. Had the same feel as Spidey 2 at that point. The narration hit and it was perfect. Spider-Man is feeling great, the city is safe, Peter is respected and liked for once. Now its time for it all to go to hell as the symbiote attaches to Spidey and he screws it all up due to the symbiote....But that didn't happen....
Instead I had to sit through 2 and a half hours of rehashed garbage with little to no action sequences, no interesting character developments, not even a good score. The subplots kept going and going and going. . . It made me sick. The whole part where MJ gets back together with Harry and then Harry evil plan of attacking Peter's heart was horrible. Peter crying like a ***** on the bridge when he realizes MJ left him. Then Peter turns emo. That was NOT what the symbiote was suppose to make him. It really felt like the studio or Avi Arad FORCED the symbiote storyline on Raimi and he didn't know what to do, so this was his awful interupatation of the Amazing Spider-Man 300 story. The movie went to bad to awful back to just plain silly.
Sandman turned into a big sand version of the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man except less charisma. That was horrible, but lets back up to the beginning. Why on earth would Raimi change the origin story? It made NO sense to re-write the origin to have Sandman kill Ben except to tie Sandman to Peter on a more personal level. But thats the problem... You didn't need to tie in the main villain with Peter! Spider-Man should be fighting with Sandman because thats what spider-man does! He fights the bad guys! Okay, so besides the Sandman story ruining the first movie, the unthinkable happens. Sandman kills Ben, steals tons of money, destroys millions of dollars in property damage, conspires to kill MJ (an innocent woman), and was part of a plot that ultimately killed Peter's best friend. And we , the audience, are expected to believe Peter forgives him at the end ? ? ? Excuse me ?? Did that really happen ? Right after Harry death scene, Peter turns to see Sandman just standing there, but instead of attacking him like he should have, they just give a dumb stare at each other... And then Sandman asks for forgiveness after all the hell and havoc he caused. And Peter just decides to forgive him. And if it couldn't get any worse, Sandman just flies away. Where does he go ? Did he get the money to save his daughter ? What is going on ?? There is no pay off to all the Sandman heists as well as daughter's wellness....
Harry Osbourne. The first two movies built his character in a fantastic way just to have the third movie ruin him like the rest of the characters. So Harry decides in the beginning he will attack Peter and try to kill him. I buy that, no complaints, maybe a little too quick turn, but I can buy he made that decision between the second and third film. So Harry gets in his surf ninja outfit and battles Peter. I have slight issues with the ninja surf thing he was wearing, but if this was the biggest problem in the movie, we would be in good shape, imo. So Harry gets his head knocked and he can't remember the bad things anymore. HOW CONVENIANT!! Oh wow, the writers needed a plot device to get Harry back to good guy mode. And what happened ? What was the pay off ? He just remembered later in the movie that he was evil and went back to evil mode when Peter was free to have scenes with Harry. And Harry decides to become a hero at the end. I don't have a problem with this except how predictable it was. I even timed the moment where a pumpkin bomb was thrown into the Sandman Marshmellow Man. Very predictable and everyone knew he would die... And he did. So basically nothing happened with Harry. In the first one, Harry struggled with his relationship with his father, betraying his friend by dating his dream girl, and trying to make it into this world as a college student. In the second one, Harry becomes a business man, tries to follow in his father's footsteps, obsession with Spider-Man, and finally realizes the truth that Peter is Spider-Man. In the third one, he bumps his head, cant remember anything, bounces a basketball, does the twist in the kitchen while messing up some omlets, and then dies at the end. Now you tell me, how can anyone enjoy what the writers did with Harry....
Mary Jane. Wow. What a *****. I think she was more of a villain than Sandman. Peter was finally getting liked by the people and is Mary happy for her man ? NO!! She is actually jealous and upset about this fact. They turned her character into a selfish cheating *****. And what does she do when she can't stand the fact her boyfriend is more successful than her - she decides to cheat on her boyfriend with his best friends, Harry... Yes. And the symbiote had NOTHING to do with this weak, crappy horrible subplot. You would think the symbiote jumped on her before Peter the way she was acting. They made her unlikable. The first two movies, she had her issues, but made the right decisions. First one she decided she loved Peter more than Spider-Man. In the second one, she decides to sacrafice her relationship to be with Peter and chose to be by his side. In the third one, she is a jealous, cheating, over reacting character.
Gwen Stacy. I don't like Bryce Dallas Howard. I think she only gets roles because the directors want to hang out with her dad because he is known to visit the sets of his daughter's films. But I don't have a problem with casting her as Gwen. Gwen was a sweet good girl in the comics. But they did absolutely NOTHING with her. Besides making her character the icon of coincedences, her character was dull, boring, no depth.. Let me get this straight.....So Gwen's dad is the one who tells Peter about Sandman killing Ben....and she also is the obsession of Eddie who happens to be Peter's rival....And she happens to be Peter's lab partner... And she happens to run into Peter when he is about to purpose...And she just happens to be modeling while the crane falls...Interesting coincedences.. Ok, but at least she's in this crappy movie because the bad guys kidnap her and Spider-Man must save her..Oh wait , that never happened, they just had another rehash of villains kidnapping MJ to lure in Spider-Man. How original.... I mean how hard is it to make Eddie Brock super jealous and kidnap her in a fit of rage and have Spider-Man try to save the day, but then MJ is the one that convinces Harry to help fight because she loves Peter and Harry loves her so much, he'll grant her that wish because he knows Peter makes her happy...But no.
Eddie Brock. What else can I say? Perfect casting choice. The idea around him was great. But I think someone clocked in 8 minute screen time as Venom. Just wow. You take the third most popular spider-man villain and give him 8 minutes ? And he died at the end. So you can't even bring him back to please unsatisfied fans. Sandman still out there, but don't even think about getting more Venom in another Spider-Man movie....
I could rant about the subplots that were awful, but the first two movies were about characters more than the plot , cgi or action sequences.. So the core of the movie, the characters are already ruined.. So is the plot good ? No... Not at all. In fact, terrible..
Subplots - usually a good movie has one or two subplots and most of the time there is pay offs with each subplot. This movie had 21,000 subplots. All were terrible and horrible. I will list them here:
-Brock, Peter , Gwen love triangle
-Peter, Harry, MJ love triangle
-Peter wanting to marry MJ (No pay off, wtf happened w/ the ring?)
-Peter, Gwen, MJ love trainge
-MJ's career path
-Harry amnesia
-Sandman killing Ben
-Sandman stealing money for daughter sickness (no pay off - what happened?)
-Brock's career struggle with Peter
-Symbiote from space making Spider-Man stronger and emo
-Venom teaming up with Sandman
-Eddie Brock's obsession with Gwen Stacy
Okay, now after that rant - you can tell the film disappointed me to no end. I did not go back to see it in theaters again. I did buy the dvd hoping 6 months after theater , maybe it needed another viewing or two because it was a better movie after repeat viewings, but that just made things worse. I found more errors and things I didn't like about the film.
Then I heard Spider-Man 4 was being prepared with Raimi, Tobey and Dunst all verbally agreeing to do it. I thought it CAN'T be worse than 3, but I lost faith in Raimi. How did he make such a bad film in part 3. What would he do with 4 ? When Sony told Raimi that he won't be needed on another Spider-Man film and it was being rebooted, I actually didn't mind. Will the reboot suck ? Probably. It won't be better than Raimi's first two. But Marc Webb deserves a shot at it because Raimi made the last one so bad, I really don't care who reboots it. Spider-Man 3 was such a bad film, I lost all faith in future Spider-Man films. Thats why I kinda like Marc Webb as director. I liked 500 Days of Summer. The movie is probably going to be crap, but I'll take it over Raimi Spidey 4.
I wanted to like Spider-Man 3. I really did. I wanted an epic trilogy and nearly had one if it wasn't for this turd. I gave it a second and third chance and still to this day, I have never been so disappointed in a film than Spider-Man 3.
And thats my Spider-Man 3 Story...