SPIDER-MAN 3
***
Director: Sam Raimi
Writer(s): Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, Alvin Sargent
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Topher Grace, Thomas Hayden-Church, Bryce Dallas-Howard
Running Time: 140 mins approx.
Rating: 12A
On Release: Out Now!
Synopsis
Spider-Man is back in town – and this time his opponent is the Sandman, an escaped criminal whose body has gained the ability to grow and morph into any shape. Initially outmatched, the tables are turned when Peter unexpectedly comes into the possession of a new black costume – one which enhances his strength and agility whilst bringing his darker tendencies to the surface. Meanwhile, Peter’s best friend Harry Osbourn continues his vendetta against Spider-Man, strapping on his father’s body armour to fight him as the New Goblin. What exactly is the black costume, and where did it come from? More importantly, what does it want with Spider-Man? Will Peter regain control in time to stop his new foes, or will the shadowy parts of his psyche take over, causing him to do something he’ll regret?
Review
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from superhero movies over the last fifteen years or so, it’s that super-villain team-ups just don’t work. Multiple villains means multiple origin stories, umpteen expositionary scenes and dozens of plot threads, and your name is Jackson or Cameron there’s only so much screen-time to go around. Inevitably the story breaks down as the plot struggles to keep focus, and as the villain characters (not to mention the actors that portray them) begin fighting to upstage one a
.0nother every time they’re together. When X-MEN 3 was released last year, replete with its Magneto/Dark Phoenix team-up (or should that be face-off?), Marvel added another problem to the mix – namely, when you’re rounding off a trilogy, what do you do with all of the ideas and storylines that you’ve wanted to do use but never got around to it? Zak Penn and Brett Ratner decided to bung them all into the same two-hour movie, of course, and what a glorious mess that made – surely, the fans hoped, Sam Raimi wouldn’t make the same mistake? Well… yes, yes he would.
SPIDER-MAN 3’s problem is that it’s not a good movie – it’s two good movies, spliced together exceptionally badly with some additional scenes of Tobey Maguire acting like a prat. Thomas Hayden-Church is so note-perfect as the tortured and multi-layered Sandman that’s he’s crying out for a movie of his own to shine in, yet instead he’s criminally underused, appearing as himself (rather than an amorphous blob of CGI) for no more than twenty-minutes of the film’s 140-minute running time. Moreover, after Raimi spent two entire movies setting up the birth of the New Goblin viewers are denied an explosive conclusion to Harry’s sworn vendetta in favour of a five-minute chat with his butler (over whom, incidentally, Bob Kane’s lawyers should consider suing!), the comics’ “black costume” storyline is hacked to pieces and bastardised, and Venom… well, Venom is wasted. What makes him a great villain is that he knows what Peter knows, has all of Peter’s powers with none of the moral hang-ups, and is almost unbeatable. Like Dan O’Bannon’s ALIEN, this sort of character should be stalking the protagonist throughout the film, popping up when its least expected to give our hero (and the audience) a damn good scare – and yet Raimi uses him like a blunt instrument, using him purely for the movie’s final battle when he could have been used to much better effect.
The true tragedy of SPIDER-MAN 3, however, is the wasted potential. We could have had two outstanding films to round off the saga — the first featuring the black costume and Sandman (climaxing with the birth of Venom) and the second following Peter as he tries to deal with Harry, with Eddie Brock/Venom lurking in the shadows the whole while – but instead Hollywood’s obsession with films running in trilogies, coupled with what you can only assume is a desire on Sam Raimi’s part to finish off and move on to the next project, delivers a finale which can only disappoint. A crying shame, too, because stand-out performances from cast members like Hayden-Church and Topher Grace make for compelling viewing, and yet they will certainly be forgotten in light of the film’s many flaws.
A must for obsessive fans only (ironic, given that they’re the ones most likely to complain), SPIDER-MAN 3 is far less than the sum of its parts. If you’re stuck for something to do on a wet Sunday afternoon, by all means grab yourself a ticket – just don’t expect anything stellar.
Matt Dillon