Spider-Man

[billytheskink]

Wow, I make one joking reference about Rocket Racer and now we have people bringing up the dadgum Big Wheel and TURNER D. CENTURY?!

They ought to put them all in one movie, and add the Razorback for good measure Good Buddy...

I want to see that electrified mane in action.

[taranchula]

Originally Posted by billytheskink

Wow, I make one joking reference about Rocket Racer and now we have people bringing up the dadgum Big Wheel and TURNER D. CENTURY?!

They ought to put them all in one movie, and add the Razorback for good measure Good Buddy...

I want to see that electrified mane in action.

Why stop there, bring in "The Walrus" too.



Okay maybe I should quit while I am ahead, before y'all wanna string me up by my toe nails.

[Ditchy McAbandonpants]

Well, as I said in the "Last movie you watched" thread, I just got back from seeing Spider-Man 3, and once again, I find myself utterly bemused by the critical and fan reaction the new movie is getting; looking around the likes of Rotten Tomatoes and Ain't It Cool, the consensus seems to be that the movie is decent but disappointing, a movie that didn't quite live up to its stellar potential, with a few (including most of you guys here on NF, I notice) who loved it anyway. I have to tell you; to be absolutely frank, I really thought it was one of the most bafflingly awful major Hollywood productions I've seen in years. A word of warning; this is my honest , personal, subjective opinion, based entirely on gut reactions, and I'm not pulling any punches, so make of it whatever you want.

Now, don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to be one of those irritating whiny internet types that Mr. Marshmallow refers to in his current sig, nor am I saying it to be contrary or controversial (those people bug the hell out of me too). Heck, I'm not even speaking from an emotional place like I was on Spidey 2, where my disappointment with it caused me to be even more scathing than I otherwise might have been; due to a combination of middling buzz and my own experience with Spider-Man 2, I went in to this one with very mild expectations, wanting nothing more than a pleasant day out at the movies, which I got. Because of that, I actually don't dislike this film in the way that I do Spidey 2, but that doesn't change the fact that I thought it was, objectively, an even worse film.

What got me most about the movie was how dreadful the writing and storytelling was, and how Raimi and co. often botched them in a way that undercut even than the normal "bad movie" standard associated with reviled directors like Stephen Sommers or Joel Schumacher. With the likes of Van Helsing or Tim Story's Fantastic Four, say, the lines and characterisation are banal, hammy and devoid of any intelligence, but at least the scenes follow a logical progression and have a clear structure, no matter how badly that structure is adorned; with Spider-Man 3, there were so many scenes (most notably the scene in the restaurant with Peter and MJ, the discussion Peter has with Aunt May near the end and even the conversation in the finale) that just seemed to die on the screen, meandering this way and that with no sense of purpose or direction, with the characters spouting dialogue that just didn't seem like it meant anything. Across the second and third movies, the biggest examples I can think of were any scenes involving Mr Ditkovich the landlord and Ursula. None of their scenes appeared to add anything to the plot, the structure, the character arcs, or the tone; those sequences just came onto the screen and sat there doing nothing at all, to the extent that they became embarassing and uncomfortable to watch. Other scenes, meanwhile, had more coherency and purpose to them, but were hobbled by impossibly clunky writing delivered in a stilted fashion; the dialogue in the Marko household, for example, for all it referenced the nature of "truth", lacked even a hint of it, whilst Aunt May again never once felt like an actual human being, remaining nothing more than a mouthpiece for trite homilies. I honestly can't fathom how any screenwriter, or indeed anybody with even a passing interest in fiction of any kind, could think some of the stuff in there was acceptable; at times, it seemed like it had been written by someone who'd never even seen a movie before.

What else? Story-wise, it wasn't irredeemable, but it really was a mess. I'm not of the opinion that it's the number of plotlines or characters that govern whether a film feels overstuffed or not; it's to do with how well the plot and scenes fit together, about making sure every plotline gets the right amount of screentime (not too much, not too little), and about making sure the pacing feels right. Batman Begins had five villains and myriad subplots and still felt streamlined, whilst Spider-Man 2 felt bloated despite its relatively thin plot. Spidey 3, to its credit, goes for a fairly straightforward spine consisting of Peter's decaying personal relationships and his struggle with his dark side, with various other plot points introduced to act as catalysts at various points over the course of that arc. The problem arises with Raimi's unnecessary desion to assign each of these catalyst plots to a different comic book legend, each of whom come with so many narrative strings attached that the film gets horribly tangled up by them. Peter's having trouble with his friend...the new Green Goblin! Peter and MJ's relationship is threatened by another girl...Gwen Stacy! Peter is driven further down the dark path when his uncle's real killer is revealed...Sandman! Peter is fully seduced by the dark side by an external force...the Venom symbiote! Inevitably, Raimi finds himself hugely overcommitted, compelled by 40 years' worth of comic book tradition and fan demand to include lengthy backstories for characters who are, in the context of this story, merely plot devices; as such, what we end up seeing are a bunch of half-baked mini-arcs (Flint Marko's story, Gwen/Captain Stacy, Eddie Brock/Venom) which feel unsatisfying and superfluous, because Raimi had neither the time nor the desire to develop them.

It's this mishandling of these great characters that meant that I didn't really get much of a kick out of it as a Spider-Fan, either. Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst continue to play Peter and MJ as a pair of whiny, self-obsessed and horribly bland wet fish (and they are just terrible in any scene of high emotion); James Franco does his best, but doesn't have enough about him to make Harry a villain with any presence at all (his amnesia plotline seemed contrived and redundant); Rosemary Harris's Aunt May does nothing but irritate me; Thomas Haden Church is a fine actor, but all his Flint Marko does nothing but mumble glumly in the two minutes of screentime he gets as an actual human rather than a roaring, morphing and flying (???) CG giant who feels more like The Mummy than the Sandman from the comics; Bryce Dallas Howard and James Cromwell have nothing to work with as the Stacys; and, sorry to disagree with you Mr Marshmallow, but to my eyes the main obstacle against introducing the Lizard in this series is that Dylan Baker is a completely bland, unprepossessing nonentity as Curt Connors.

Special mention must go to the symbiote arc, though; I just can't see how anyone could be satisfied with its hamfisted, half-baked treatment here. The damn thing just falls from the sky practically onto Peter's head in probably the laziest bit of writing I've ever seen, latches on, and transforms him from a geeky superhero into...a geeky superhero who's a bit cocky. And that's it. Now, I didn't mind the Saturday Night Fever/The Mask-esque Jackass Dancing Peter sequence as much as a lot of people (it was somewhat amusing, and it made Maguire seem almost charismatic for a moment), but you're telling me that's the effect of the black suit? That's the most prominent illustrated example of the "intoxicating power" of the symbiote? That's not only an insult to all the fans who'd waited to see that plotline realised in a movie, but it also makes no sense within this plotline; if the only effect we actually see the symbiote having is turning Peter into a jerk, how are we meant to understand why he even puts it on? Worst of all, though, is the fact that using the symbiote plotline has the biggest string of all attached: namely, that it must precede the misguided introduction of Venom, a character who Raimi doesn't like and that the movie's structure does not need and actually suffers for by the time he's introduced. I felt Topher Grace actually put in the movie's best performance as Eddie Brock, in that he actually had some charisma, but it didn't change the fact that everything about him and Venom felt unenthusiastically tacked on and rushed, and I don't think anyone wanted to see him done that way...


Man.


I'm just going to stop right there, because I've been at this for hours, and I still haven't gone through everything I thought was wrong with the movie. I know almost all of you here really liked it, so I feel kind of bad for laying into it like this, but the plain and simple fact is that I really struggle to think of anything that I thought it did right, no matter from which perspective I look at it; as a film, as entertainment, as an adaptation,or as a fan service, it just doesn't seem to work for me on any level. I think that's it for me and the Spider-Man movie series now; 2 left me with a lot of conflicted feelings about the franchise, but 3 has cleared those doubts right up. The first movie I'll have to rewatch, because I remember loving it when it first came out, even if it didn't hold up so well to repeat viewings - could be to do with the fact that David Koepp (Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones 4) wrote that one instead of Alvin Sargent and Sam Raimi on 2 and 3 - but certainly I'll be happy if I never have to watch Spider-Man 2 or Spider-Man 3 ever again. And that's the sad truth.

[AerostarMonk]

Geez, Ditchy, I think you just made Spider-Man cry. I applaud you for taking a stance in thread that is in complete opposition with most of what you said though. I just hope the whole thing hasn't soured you on Sam Raimi.

[GrimTheLost]

You know, for liking the movie as much as I did, I only have three problems: Venom needed more tongue, they needed to double up Topher Grace's voice and deepen it to make it sound like the symbiote was also talking, and lastly Venom should have referred to himself as "we".

[Mr. Marshmallow]

I'll be honest Ditchy, I think that's a bit too harsh. Not even the critics have ever gone that far down on a movie before, and I've read ALOT of bad reviews from critics over horror movies, unnecessary sequels and etc. I really personally think your not giving the film any credit or support for doing such a hard job.

Everyone was fearing this would be the last Spider man, and the one thing I will give credit to, the one thing that I will firmly stand by is that Sam Raimi did his BEST to wrap the movie up and improve on the flaws from each film. There was no gurantee there'd be another Spidey flick and with that in mind, he did his best to give us a last hurrah.

He did basically everything he could have done: he gave us another classic villain (Sandman), he wrapped up Harry's storyline, and he introduced another large milestone event in Spider man's life (the symbiote and Venom). Some films have tried to wrap everything up and done it in a much poorer fashion.

X-men 3 comes to mind, even though that movie had some down right bad ass sequences like the bridge and the final fight with dark Phoneix. But I really didn't feel rushed with this movie, I think it gave enough time to give enough decent screen time to each problem, and each character.

I personally love Venom and would have loved to see more of him but I was impressed at how strong his prescence became, and I felt that he did a much better job then Dr. Octopus in 2. Both had less then longer time but at least Venom really took control of the screen and made use of his time.

I don't wanna rip apart your review and I will stand firmly by my view that Spider man 3 is an amazing film and an impressive attempt to do so much in one film. Only other thing I have to say is that "Batman Beings" really didn't have 5 villains, it was more like 2: Scarecrow and Ra's Al Gul.

Guys like Falconi and anyone else were just kind of filler, Gul and Scarecrow were the real villains they were leading up to, you can tell because of how Batman movies usually treat gangsters. Once the freaks come in, the gangster get the boot, look at what Joker did to Grisham and the mob in the first movie.

[billytheskink]

Well, maybe Rocket Racer would be an improvement...

[Ditchy McAbandonpants]

Mr. Marshmallow: "A bit too harsh"? I basically just eviscerated a movie that you really liked; I would have thought you'd have a stronger reaction than that!

LOL, no, seriously, I appreciate that respected my opinion enough to read what I had to say and then offer comment in repsonse, as opposed to blithely shouting me down like many other message board-types would.

I know that my criticism of the movie there, just like my critique of Spider-Man 2 earlier in the topic, went much further than any critic I've ever read, but to be honest, I guess that's part of the reason why I go so far; because sometimes I feel like I'm alone in regarding these movies in this way. Spidey 2 was one of the most critically adored mainstream movies in the last few years, and for all the flak Spidey 3's copped, no one seems to go much further than saying that it's "disappointing" or "not that great". As far as I'm concerned, that's just astonishing; as you can probably tell from my posts here, I found 2 and 3 to be really, really terrible films that missed nearly every mark they aimed for, with aspects that seemed so badly done to me that I'm astonished they could have occured in such a high-profile tentpole movie. I can't really think of any other situation where my opinion differs so wildly from the general consensus, and to be honest, I sometimes wonder if the rest of the world is insane, or if I am. It's like you and me now, Mr M; I'm reading your posts, and I know we've both watched the exact same movie, but at the same time it feels like we can't be, because you've somehow come away with the exact opposite reaction in pretty much every way. That's why, like you said, I don't want to start unpicking your opinions, because I can just see it would be pointless and kind of unpleasant. I've put my opinion out there, and I hope I've illustrated and explained it well enough for people to understand where I'm coming from, even if they don't agree.

Oh, and on the Batman Begins point, you're right; I'm really just regurgitating a slightly disingenuous figure that people throw around about that film. I mean, I would say that Falcone had an anatagonist role significant enough to count as a villain, even if he wasn't a "supervillain", maybe even Earle (the slimy Wayne Corporation executive) at a stretch, but to get five you have to cheat and count people like the decoy Ra's or Joe Chill. Still, my point stands that I thought that Batman Begins juggled far more complex plotlines and characterisations without feeling as bloated as the plot-lite Spidey 2...

AerostarMonk: Sorry dude, but when a guy makes two films in a row that I hold in such low esteem as Spidey 2and 3, I can't help but get a little down on him. It's a shame too, because Sam Raimi seems a nice guy, a real honest filmmaker and a genuine fan. Moreover, I've enjoyed a lot of the other stuff I've seen of his; Evil Dead was fun, A Simple Plan was a great little morality tale, and indeed, I liked Spider-Man enough to see it three times in the cinema. Thing is, they say you're only as good as your last film, so in my eyes that doesn't make Sam Raimi very good at all...

PS - Just in case my negativity is getting you down too much, here's a tidbit to show you just how much I'm in the minority here; the opening weekend box office estimates are in, and Spider-Man 3 has snagged an estimated $148 million (for reference, the second placed movie, Disturbia, grossed $5.7 million ). That breaks...well, pretty much every record going, actually, but that's not even all; the movie has additionally grossed a frankly ludicrous $227 million overseas, giving it a worldwide box office take of $375 million after three days. So, uh, whatever my complaints about Spider-Man 2 and 3, at least they'll now get Spider-Man 4,5,6,7 and 8 to put it right. Maybe we will get to Walrus, Big Wheel and Turner D. Century after all.

[AerostarMonk]

I know, its crazy! $375 million dollars! That's just, wow! Bad word of mouth or not, this movie has made it's money and the only thing left is either switching out directors or letting Raimi take a much needed break.

I do hope this movie beats Pirates. Not many people probably know this, but I think that franchise is the most overrated crap to come out in cinema in many a year. Just movies not worthy of the high praise they get. And Johnny Depp being nominated for Sparrow as opposed to all of his other, superior roles. I'd rather watch 10 Fantastic Four sequels than see POTC go through another cycle.

[GrimTheLost]

Originally Posted by AerostarMonk

I do hope this movie beats Pirates. Not many people probably know this, but I think that franchise is the most overrated crap to come out in cinema in many a year.

I am so glad someone agrees with me. The only thing saving POTC is Johnny Depp. And as great as he is, he can't save that load.