Movie Review: Spider-Man 3

I saw Spider-Man 3 in IMAX on opening day. For the most part it was ok but there were definitely some annoying parts and they were mostly at the end which made it pretty unsatisfying.

Tobey Maguire is back as Peter Parker, in fact it seemed as if every character from both of the previous films were back as well as several new ones including two new villains. There's a lot going on in the film with Norman Osborn seeking revenge on Spider-Man for killing his father, an alien symbiote turning Spider-Man evil, a new villain made out of sand, MJ having job problems, Parker getting new competition at the paper, and more. For everything crammed into it, the plot is remarkably easy to follow, but there are also annoying holes. I could get passed the (brief) stupid science stuff, but MJ seemingly forgetting about an attack by the Green Goblin stretched my suspension of disbelief.

There's also a lot of crying. I think all but one major character cries, it gets to be a bit much. Spider-Man has always been about relating to the average troubled life of Peter Parker but the problem is that a lot of the emotional weight is just through an unreasonable lack of communication.

The special effects were good particularly the Sandman and Venom characters. The action sequences are pretty good, at least I think they were. In spite of the giant IMAX images, they were pretty hard to see what with the camera constantly flying around every character which were also constantly flying around. I thought Happy Feet felt like a roller coaster, but this was that and more as it was in tight spaces and with rubble flying around. But the worst was when it was following a plain human cop walk around a truck. The camera was shakier than a jell-o mold in a hurricane. As much as 300 tried to freeze the action to look like a comic book panel, this film didn't.

There are some funny scenes including Bruce Campbell as a maitre d' but they are often offset but bizarre sequences particularly a Saturday Night Fever homage. I'm not sorry I saw it and I can see how some people liked it, but I liked the first two much better.