Spidey is back for a third go around and this time besides battling some new villains, including Sandman, he has to do battle with his own inner demons brought on by some space goop.
Things are off to a good start, Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) is the hero of New York and M.J. (Kirsten Dunst) has been cast in a Broadway musical. Spidey’s alter ego Peter Parker is planning on proposing to M.J.
Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) has broken out of jail and is on the run. He escapes through a scientific testing zone and is in the middle of an atomization experiment and is fused with a pile of sand. Things start to also go downhill for M.J. when she’s fired from the musical.
Spider-Man saves the police captain Stacey’s (James Cromwell) daughter Gwen (Bryce Dallas Howard) and is awarded the key to the city. A publicity photo kiss with Gwen causes M.J. to doubt Peter’s fidelity and his proposal plans are scuttled. A meteorite fell to Earth and a bit of living black substance fuses with one of Peter’s Spidey outfits. It seems to feed off of his rage. He also has plenty to rage about with the breakup with M.J., another photographer named Edward Brock, Jr. (Topher Grace) competing with him, and Harry Osborn (James Franco) wanting to avenge his father.
Add to all of that, it turns out that Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) was really killed by Marko and the black suit only makes matters worse. However, the suit has other plans when Peter breaks its grip and finds a more willing host in the form of Brock who becomes the villainous Venom.
Spider-Man 3 has a lot of stuff going on – perhaps too much stuff. I’ve never quite understood the need to over-villain the movies. We’ve got Venom, Sandman, a new Green Goblin, and evil Peter Parker. This usually means that one of the villain’s is given short shrift.
That one would be Venom since he really doesn’t emerge until towards the end of the picture. I do also have a few other jabs.
I enjoyed the whole battle with the inner villain storyline, but it gets a bit goofy when Peter Parker is strutting around town and seems to be channeling Buddy Love (aka Jerry Lewis from 1963’s Nutty Professor) or that’s how I saw it.
The film does have its good points though – the action is fantastic and the special effects are top notch. J.K. Simmons is a hoot as J. Johan Jameson and Bruce Campbell (as a snooty waiter) and Stan Lee’s cameos are highlights.
Rosemary Harris and Cliff Robertson are pretty much cameos, but they still pull the heartstrings in their limited parts.
I liked the film but thought that too many villains somewhat rushed the ending and although it didn’t spoil the film for me I wondered if they could’ve done without Venom and saved him for another film.
I also thought that Peter Parker might as well come out of the Spider-Man closet since with each film more and more people tend to learn about his identity.
Spider-Man 3 is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.40:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. A fullscreen version is available separately. Special features include two commentaries. One by director Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Kirsten Dunst, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Topher Grace. The second is by producers Avi Arad, Grant Curtis, and Laura Ziskin, visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk, and editor Bob Murawski.
There are also 6 minutes of bloopers, image galleries, the 4-minute “Signal Fire” music video by Snow Patrol, a Spider-Man game preview, a 1-minute toy commercial, and previews for other Sony DVDs. A more expansive two-disc set is also available separately that adds a second disc of making-of featurettes.
I ended up liking Spider-Man 3 but there were some rough spots getting there (Buddy Love?). I thought it was a great movie, but I don’t know that I’d say that it was the best in the trilogy. I can’t really give it 3.8 stars so I’ll have to average up.
Spider-Man 3 is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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