Spiderman 3

Well, well well. So this is my first review? I thought i'd open a blog so i can spew my common-as-an-asshole vitriol onto the web, just like everybody else. I'm cheap, so i'll typically only ever review movies, games or whatever long since they've fallen out of fashion. That being said, let's get on with the review:

I saw spiderman 3 recently. All i have to say about it is it's "George Clooney playing spiderman" away from being the worst superhero movie i've ever seen. I could go on and talk about all the problems with it... so i will (tribute to Yahtzee over at The Escapist!):

Firstly, the Sandman plot was entirely unnecessary. He shows up, like, 4 times in the movie: the first to show he's in existence, the second turning into sandman via a "particle physics" experiment (that doesn't look anything like any particle physics experiment i've ever heard of... but what would i know, being IN particle physics!) the third and forth as fights with spiderman.

While sandman's story with his daughter is a footnote in the plot, we find out that all this time, apparently he was the one who shot uncle ben... but the police felt it unnecessary to inform the parker's until after he escapes from prison (which the parker's handle with a tone of anger and apathy). It doesn't seem to serve any purpose that he killed ben except that it "makes peter mad" and leads to a poorly done fight with black-spiderman in the train-riddled underground of NY city. At the end of hte film, he fights spiderman again, this time as a giant sandmonster (for some reason, he didn't do this earlier) and you have to infer his defeat as the director (lazily) decides to leave him out after he takes a few shots that seem to hurt him. But fear not, he shows up once more at the end to "clear things up" over the uncle ben thing and blows away in the wind. Apparently his daughter no longer matters, and you as the viewer don't care.

Speaking of the rest of hte movie, mary jane spends the first third of it acting like a bitch. Peter retaliates in the second half by acting like a prick. But, peter parker is forgiven because he has "the black spiderman suit", which makes him more aggressive, talented and rude. Mary jane has no such excuse, so naturally, you just hate her for being a bitch to peter for no reason, so it's virtually impossible to care when she's moping about about how hard done by she is. This all
climaxes in a wishy-washy "all is forgiven" finale were peter, mary jane and harry (green goblin) all forgive eachother on harry's deathbed.

Speaking of harry, he only forgives peter after his butler (played here by the worst possible actor ever) tells him he's long since known harry's father killed himself with his own weapon (cause i guess he has a degree in pathology). Naturally, watching harry be consumed by
misguided vengeance for years and years didn't worry him and only after peter explicitly asks for his help does he think to let harry know of his errors.

Speaking of bad actors, the movie is littered with them. I mean, even small parts like the news woman is caste as badly as possible without it being played by a one armed monkey. But, it's hardly noticeable, only because the rest of the movie is so distractingly bad, you just accept this when it comes along.

Speaking of bad actors, let's talk aunt mae: now, i know it's "more realisitc" to have her telling bad stories because some people can't tell stories well in real life. But seriously, couldn't they make her remotely interesting? It's gotten to the point that whenever aunt mae's on screen you're like "damnit, again?" and just look at your watch until she's gone. I suppose it's not really her fault, but that of the writers. Either way, she's simply an unlovable character you're supposed to think of as lovable.

As far as the venom subplot goes, it's too spaced out and plays out stupidly. The symbiot's introduced immediately, but does nothing for most of the movie. It's compounded by the fact that you don't even see spiderman do anything with it (fight-wise). Eddie Brock's character is interjected with all the subtly of a rampaging elephant and his "downfall" at peter's hand is so pathetic, you think he's just oversensitive and is "one good cry away from being a woman" (to take a line from that 70's show; the last good thing the actor playing eddie brock ever did). All in all, you end up thinking "why introduce venom at all?" But seeing as everything else is a spectacular crap-fest it just seems to roll off your back at this point as you're simply waiting for the movie to end, just for the "bragging rights" of saying you watched it.