Sunday, May 06, 2007
Spidey 3 Spoliers And Complaints
OK, my complaints with Spider-Man 3, which I'll just type up in stream-of-consciousness mode, would include the following:
The symbiote came to earth in a meteor? Come on. Look, I know there was no way to do the secret wars story line, and that's fine… and I'm also fine with the symbiote being an alien. That makes sense, too … but get real. There were two elements in the two previous films that could have snapped together like legos to make the symbiote make more sense in the context of this trilogy. One, John Jamison the astronaut. Two, OsCorp. Have John Jamison bring the symbiote back from space and have the government give it to OsCorp for research purposes. Once it's in OsCorp's hands, there are a million ways it could end up with Spider-Man that would have made sense AND would have fleshed out the Peter / Harry conflict. If I can come up with that, surely well paid Hollywood writers can come up with something at least as good as that.
What the hell was the deal with the scars on Harry's face? That was totally superfluous. First of all, the makeup looked bad. Secondly, there's no way he'd have scarred that soon. His wounds would have been red and bloody and fresh.
Uh… I'm pretty sure that the mentor-butler-type is supposed to work for another super powered rich boy.
I was fine, though, with Harry becoming heroic at the end. I thought it worked well in the context of this trilogy.
I agree with those who say that Venom should have been saved for another film, and if they hadn't tried to cram too much into THIS movie, I might want to actually see a fourth film. What I would have liked to have seen was Spider-Man 3 featuring Spidey vs Harry as the Goblin and Sandman … and then Spider-Man 4 featuring Spidey vs Venom and The Lizard. THAT would have been fun, and I can think of a lot of ways to make it make sense thematically. Especially with regard to Venom and The Lizard both being guys who are changed for the worse by trying to improve themselves.
Gwen Stacey was a nice addition to this film, and I enjoyed her more than I did Kirsten Dunst's whiney take on MJ. I kinda wished that Bryce Howard's Gwen had been the girlfriend for the whole trilogy instead of MJ. Save MJ for another set of films down the road. It bugged me, though, that she was just used as a wedge between Pete and Mary Jane. Bryce Howard is too good an actress and Gwen is too likable a character to toss her aside that way.
VENOM IS "THEM" … NOT "HIM" !!!!!!!!! Serious pronoun problems, although at least they got his locomotion right. Venom casts his "webs" from the back of his hand, not from his wrist, and that was correct in the movie. That's better than I can say about Sandman's way of traveling as a cloud of sand. WTF? A cloud of sand?
I'd liked to have seen more of Thomas Haden Church as Sandman. I liked his hang-dog droopiness and his "big dumb brute with a heart of gold" character. Again, the presence of too many villains detracted from each of them.
I could go on and on and on … and we can do so in the comments of the review, but if you post spoilers in the comments, please include a warning.
OK, my complaints with Spider-Man 3, which I'll just type up in stream-of-consciousness mode, would include the following:
The symbiote came to earth in a meteor? Come on. Look, I know there was no way to do the secret wars story line, and that's fine… and I'm also fine with the symbiote being an alien. That makes sense, too … but get real. There were two elements in the two previous films that could have snapped together like legos to make the symbiote make more sense in the context of this trilogy. One, John Jamison the astronaut. Two, OsCorp. Have John Jamison bring the symbiote back from space and have the government give it to OsCorp for research purposes. Once it's in OsCorp's hands, there are a million ways it could end up with Spider-Man that would have made sense AND would have fleshed out the Peter / Harry conflict. If I can come up with that, surely well paid Hollywood writers can come up with something at least as good as that.
What the hell was the deal with the scars on Harry's face? That was totally superfluous. First of all, the makeup looked bad. Secondly, there's no way he'd have scarred that soon. His wounds would have been red and bloody and fresh.
Uh… I'm pretty sure that the mentor-butler-type is supposed to work for another super powered rich boy.
I was fine, though, with Harry becoming heroic at the end. I thought it worked well in the context of this trilogy.
I agree with those who say that Venom should have been saved for another film, and if they hadn't tried to cram too much into THIS movie, I might want to actually see a fourth film. What I would have liked to have seen was Spider-Man 3 featuring Spidey vs Harry as the Goblin and Sandman … and then Spider-Man 4 featuring Spidey vs Venom and The Lizard. THAT would have been fun, and I can think of a lot of ways to make it make sense thematically. Especially with regard to Venom and The Lizard both being guys who are changed for the worse by trying to improve themselves.
Gwen Stacey was a nice addition to this film, and I enjoyed her more than I did Kirsten Dunst's whiney take on MJ. I kinda wished that Bryce Howard's Gwen had been the girlfriend for the whole trilogy instead of MJ. Save MJ for another set of films down the road. It bugged me, though, that she was just used as a wedge between Pete and Mary Jane. Bryce Howard is too good an actress and Gwen is too likable a character to toss her aside that way.
VENOM IS "THEM" … NOT "HIM" !!!!!!!!! Serious pronoun problems, although at least they got his locomotion right. Venom casts his "webs" from the back of his hand, not from his wrist, and that was correct in the movie. That's better than I can say about Sandman's way of traveling as a cloud of sand. WTF? A cloud of sand?
I'd liked to have seen more of Thomas Haden Church as Sandman. I liked his hang-dog droopiness and his "big dumb brute with a heart of gold" character. Again, the presence of too many villains detracted from each of them.
I could go on and on and on … and we can do so in the comments of the review, but if you post spoilers in the comments, please include a warning.
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