Spider-Man 3 - Review

During a sound editing class I took in film school, the teacher said that the audio and video doesn't always have to sync up during action sequences or in certain scenarios, only if the ending is in sync. Therefore, it subconsciously allows the viewer to believe that everything matches up. That always struck a chord with me because I believe the same could be said with movies as a whole. I've seen movies that we're maybe a little boring at the beginning or not entirely engaging right away but totally captivated me around the ending and it ends up saving the film. For me, a good example of this is the film Heat. Now, I haven't seen it in a while, but I remember being bored out of my mind for the first half of the film and being blown away by the second half. May have to watch that one again. However, it can go both ways. A film can grab me right from the start with an intriguing story and totally lose me at the end. That is Spider-Man 3. This film has lots of elements that I think would have worked really well on their own, however, by the time the final battle was happening on screen, I felt like I was watching something like Batman and Robin. A little backtracking into why I felt like that. Sam Raimi has a very distinct directing style. Watch Army of Darkness and you'll see what I mean. It's a wonderful movie too by the way. In the first Spider-Man, you can tell that this man had a vision and a love for comic books and he treated the film with great care. In the second movie, you could tell that Sony grabbed Sam aside and told him that they needed to add in more humour to gage a wider audience. That's why you see scenes like Peter Parker falling down a building and landing on his back in an alleyway full of cars with the alarms going off and the infamous elevator sequence. After both films were great hits, you just have to assume that it was all Sony's doing when it came to the brilliant idea (that's sarcasm just in case it's not clear) of including not one, not two, but three villains. It's a true shame because I believe each one of these villains could have worked if they had an entire film dedicated to them. If I was the head of Sony, I would have said to Sam, "Okay, Harry Osborne is your villain for the third movie because he has been built up for two movies. It seems like a good time to have him be the main antagonist for Spider-Man. The fourth film could be about the Sandman and Peter finding the black virus goo stuff (I don't know the technical comic book term for that stuff) and turning him into a raging revenge seeking psycho with the black goo finding it's way to Eddie Brock as a nice teaser for Spider-Man 5 which could be your Venom story. As for Spider-Man 6, you got Shocker, Electro, the Vulture, take your pick. " Of course, I don't mean to say that I knew all along how to fix the original Spider-Man trilogy, it's just me being in my own fantasy and thinking, "wouldn't that be cool?" Like I said before, I like the idea of Peter Parker turning to the revenge route and how it can consume him. Like the other films, it would have continued the tradition of having great messages about being a hero, but it's lost in the countless amount of mind-boggling decisions. I mean, why have Peter Parker change into an emo looking moron and dancing in the street or... that stupid dance scene. Since when did Peter Parker have time to learn piano and practice that dance number? If you want your film to tackle the dark themes of revenge, it's a little hard when you have your main character taking out Gwen Stacy and saying lines to her like, "Nah, you look fine babe." When he gets genuinely angry at Eddie Brock for faking those Spider-Man pictures or especially in his fight underground with the Sandman, it really works. Just... damn it Sam you were so close! Or... damn it Sony for making him juggle all these storylines... I don't know, it's messy. All of it leading to an ending with little to no emotional investment. Now, why do I still like this movie? Well, I can't deny that I think the first half is actually pretty solid, even though you can tell it was setting up many different storylines. Also, I really do like the idea of Peter "turning to the dark side" if you will and finding out that revenge can be a powerful ally (sorry for the blatant Star Wars references.) It's just that this film really is messy in terms of it's tone and it's overall consistency. As the film went on, I could tell that the writing got lazier and lazier. It seemed like they had so much on their plate and thought, "Okay, how do we get Harry to forgive Peter? Why don't we just have his butler tell him that Harry's father died via his own glider? Sure, that works." Well, if that was going to be the reason why Harry forgives Peter Parker, then why didn't the butler mention anything to Harry before? Like, I don't know... right after his father died? See, now I am starting to nitpick. It just makes me sad that this is the ending to the original Spider-Man trilogy because the first two films did change me as a person, whereas this film although not terrible, ended what could have been one of my favourite trilogies ever with a sour taste in my mouth.

Video Review Here: https://youtu.be/MgGVM6HVjyU