El hombre araña 3

Add my voice to those underwhelmed by the latest edition of the Spiderman franchise. While it does contain some of the best action sequences I've ever seen, it is far from the best film ever made.

The problem with the film is that there is simply too much going on. First off you have the Peter/MJ relationship bumping along, add to that the Peter/Harry story line still playing out, plus we have the addition of the Sandman story and coming in in the final half hour is the addition of Venom. Its too much for the movie to handle, the result of which it all feels half baked. Very few of the characters get the proper amount of time to develop with the worst offender is Eddie Brock and Venom who get zero and so seem to belong in another movie (Venom looks great which makes his under use seem even worse). The real proof the film has too much going on was that there are a couple of times where the plot is moved along by sudden out of left field revelations. The only one I"ll reveal, because its in the trailer, is that Sandman killed Uncle Ben in the first film. Had the film been better plotted the revelation wouldn't have been necessary, nor would any of the others.

There are some bright spots, the majority of the Sandman material is sterling, with the first appearance of Sandman in the sand pit almost perfect, and the sequence that makes up his first battle with Spidey one of the greatest things I've ever seen put on film. The Sandman sequences alone make it worth slogging through the ups and downs of the rest of the movie.

Is it a bad movie? No, just a disappointing one. Its clear that this could have and should have been the best in the series (and maybe the best film of the year) had all of the right pieces been put in place, indeed the final sequences in the film probably would have reduced most audiences to tears had they gotten the rest of the film right.

As I said the film is worth seeing at some point, just don't feel the need to run out with everyone else. Was it worth fighting the crowds the first weekend to see? Not really, but it is worth seeing. Hopefully they'll take a break before they make the next one, maybe they'll make the one that this movie should have been

My feelings after watching the third film are somewhere in the neighborhood of satisfied, but that feeling is fairly disappointing. Satisfied more or less means adequate and to follow a sequel that I consider excellent with a film that's only adequate is a certainly a step down. Positively, Spider-Man 3 does reasonably well at maintaining a feeling similar to that of the first two films. I never felt like I wasn't seeing the same world or characters and that's important to me. Continuity in tone really helps hold a series together. The Matrix Reloaded never felt to me like I was witnessing the continuation of the story and world presented in the first installment. The scenery and characters felt like weak and dull recreations and that really bugged me. The New-York of Spider-Man 3 is about the same as before, as is Peter's apartment, The Daily Bugle offices, etc. Peter, Harry, Mary Jane, Aunt May, etc. also carry over well and it's easy to jump back into their lives. Where it doesn't feel like its predecessors is in its pacing and scope. The film tries to tell a lot of story for one film, much more than either the previous installments. This makes it messy. If you took Spider-Man 1 and 2's stories, wove them together and compressed them into one 2 hour film, you'd have a mess pretty similar to Spider-Man 3. A lot of this has to do with poor exposition and the decision to include three villains. In good exposition, events lead to other events and it all seems to flow naturally. Some films end up feeling like a story wasn't really even written, but instead a series of well-crafted scenes that don't necessarily fit well together. A bunch of smaller scenes are then written to connect those scenes. These scenes can feel very forced because they often rely heavily on coincidence. The Matrix Reloaded is full of these contrived scenes and so is Spider-Man 3. They're frustrating because they act like speed bumps where the plot suddenly feels awkward and my enjoyment of the film drops. One scene sticks out particularly in Spider-Man 3 as too awkward. Venom, one of the super-villains, is swinging through alleyways when he is ambushed by the Sandman, another villain. Venom proposes they team to get Spider-Man together, Sandman agrees, end scene. This scene is needed to set up the final, huge battle of the film but just seems poorly worked in. For one it's very short, and two the characters don't know each other and have completely different motives for being villains. That the two would decide that quickly to become partners after coincidentally running into each other is just sloppy to watch.

Despite how it seems, I didn't hate the film. I was just disappointed in its flow as a narrative and thought it aimed much higher than it should have in terms of what to include plot wise. Regardless though, many scenes were very enjoyable to watch and I don't just mean action scenes. The Daily Bugle scenes, as always, were great and funny. The addition of Topher Grace as Peter's photographer rival, Eddie Brock, was great casting. His line delivery works perfectly with his character's sleazy personality and his scenes with Peter are some of the best. The character Harry Osborne returns and becomes one of the film's three villains: a new Green Goblin that takes over where the Goblin of the first film left off. Harry and Peter's relationship is probably the most interesting part of the story. Their struggle between being friends and enemies makes for some tense moments. One of my favorite scenes in the film is a verbal confrontation in a diner between Peter and Harry. Playing off Peter's presumption that he and Harry are back on good terms, Harry orchestrates a bit of nasty drama that sticks a knife in Pete's love life. He has Peter meet him in a diner just to drive the knife in a little further. As Pete storms out, Harry is awash in sadistic joy with himself before making a fast and creepy exit. Harry is really the best handled villain of the film. Not only as the Green Goblin Jr. fighting Spider-Man in the sky much the way his father did, but as Harry, Peter's estranged friend, using their friendship as a pretty sharp weapon against him. The villain I could have done without was the Sandman. His character was interesting but his place in the film as a main character seemed unnecessary and forced. He's an escaped convict running from the police who accidentally falls into a big science experiment and becomes the Sandman. He is also apparently the actual killer of Peter's uncle Ben thus giving Peter motivation to go after him. This reworking of the first film's story seems very far fetched and unnecessary. The computer effects used to create Sandman are terrific as is the performance by Thomas Hayden-Church, but I think the film would have improved without him. More time could then have been given to the conflicts with Harry and Eddie and likewise Goblin and Venom. Venom is particularly nice because he's the only villain not the product of some crazy experiment gone wrong. His creation is almost entirely Peter's fault. Venom acts as a slimy toothy grinning anti-Spider-Man, who hates Spider-Man on a personal level after Eddie Brock loses his job and girlfriend and holds Peter responsible. Two villains definitely would've been enough for one film, especially two villains that feel wronged by Peter personally, not just Peter as Spider-Man. I don't really want them to continue this series, but since it seems like they may anyway, I hope some lesson is learned with number three that less really can be more. If the time that was spent awkwardly packing too many stories into one film was instead spent working on one good story so that it flowed naturally, Spider-Man 3 could have excelled the way number two did.

This film has received a bad rap from many people. I feel I have to defend it. While I am not big on special effects and CGI, I will set those aside for the moment.

Anyone who grew up reading Spider-Man should know that putting 40 years of comic history into a movie (or 3) is a hard task. But I feel like they succeeded here. Venom comes across pretty accurately considering how much they had to truncate it, and the Sandman is decent despite some interesting modifications.

The biggest problem I had with this film is that if they do not make a fourth, they leave open too many plot lines. And, as far as I know, no such film is in the works. But that is more an issue of the studio, I think.

And of course the rumor of three good movies in the franchise was not true. We have two incredible movies and then we have this one. It's definitely the lesser of the three and that says a lot, because its predecessors we're fantastic. The movie struggles to find out what it's really about and we get a movie filled with too many villains that doesn't get enough screentime, and maybe some of them shouldn't have had any at all. The acting is a little edgy this time around, but I think that's because of the script and the constant rewriting of it. It bugs me a little, because this could have easily been the definitive "Spider-Man" if Raimi had just removed some things from the movie and maybe added a couple of more good lines to the script.

Third entry has Peter Parker and alter ego Spider-Man fighting what could possibly be the greatest battle of his life. The intrepid Parker is on top of the world as N.Y.C. citizens have finally come to appreciate all of his heroic deeds, but more importantly he's found a stable relationship with Mary Jane Watson. His seemingly perfect existence comes to an abrupt halt when he learns that his uncle's real killer is still at large, acquires a rival at the Daily Bugle, and best friend-turned-bitter adversary Harry Osborn comes seeking revenge. Peter also bonds with an unusual black symbiote that unleashes a darker side of him and threatens to destroy everything he holds dear. Some effective moments of intense, exciting action and superior special effects are undermined by overlength, and juxtaposed against moments of corny, unintentionally funny human drama. The ingredients for a success are there, including a good cast and some interesting subplots, but they can't overcome a leaden script which chooses to revel in its mawkish material rather than flesh out its characters or tell a coherent story. Watchable, but never as engaging or spectacular as its predecessors. **½