Spider-Man 3 (discussion and spoilers)

Saw it last night, and loved it.

By now, almost every plot detail has been discussed here, in a LOT of detail, so I will try not to go back over all of that... will just say that for me, overall, it "worked". I had heard a few grumblings beforehand (about the scenes of Peter swaggering down the street, and the "dance scene"), and I can understand the misgivings.. but I think there is plenty of angst and darkness here, if that is what you are looking for, and winking a bit at "bad Peter" added a nice bit of levity (although that dance scene doesn't conclude on a light note!)....

LOVED the actions sequences. Thought the Harry story arc had surprising depth to it and really did some interesting things with the character. Not sure I like the tinkering with Uncle Ben's death, but if they WERE going to tinker, this wasn't a terrible way to go about it (sounds like damning with faint praise, I know, but not meant that way!). And loved the final showdown, in front of a big crowd, the media, etc... a classic, 1960's ish comic book moment, and really well handled.

I saw no signs of "series fatigue", personally. A lot of fun, great action, and a good story...IMHO...*S*

Shadow

PS - Bruce Campbell, terrific once more. *S*
 
MaxwellSmart said:
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I am aroused.
 
EDIT: I liked the reply I made on another forum better, so here it is. My original reply was way too harsh on Sandman.

The emo: ...what emo? '_' The only emo part I thought was with the whole "onoz I hit MJ" thing and going after Sandman. I must be forgetting something. But, yeah, the hair thing was hilairous. My sister and I laughed when he did that. :p

The romance: Yuck. Horribly handeled. For one thing... why the hell did Peter kiss Gwen!? '_' I can definetly understand his whole "yay you like me, you really like me!" thing, but the kiss was stupid. SOmething tells me that was originally planned for the symbiote to be responsible for. Maybe they could have had it influencing him but not changing his costume. Also, MJ/Harry didn't serve much of a point either. Harry doesn't have to lurve MJ to try to save her at the end, y'know.

The humor: Bwhahaha. Most humorous of the three, that's for sure. Let's start with symbiote!Peter. That entire thing was hilarious. XD I loved how all the women rolled their eyes at him besides Betty and the Ditkovich girl (who was hilarious). The dancing and piano thing may have been taking it to far, but Conners did say that it heightened one's abilities. I wished they had shown that the symbiote made Peter stronger and what have you, but whatever. Anyway, the buzzing desk was hilarious. And while I'm at it, Peter and Eddie acing like little kids to each other was mildly amusing.

The Goblin Jr.: Aside from the romance thing, I thought he was all right, although the butler dues ex came out of nowhere. The amnesia was a good mirror of the comics and I love the fight at the beginning (particularly how Peter took him down). His detah scene was annoyingly short all because of-

The tacked-on villian: I love Sandman's CGI. The way he flew and when he first re-formed was pretty cool-looking. Unfortunately... he didn't really do much other than make Peter all "I SHALL KILL YOU". The Uncle Ben was absolutely pointless imo. Honestly, I think Sandman could have accidently knocked aside a car that hit Aunt May or something and symbiote!Spidey "killing" him in the same fight would have worked well enough. The daughter ordeal not finding closure was annoying; I would have thought Spider-Man would come into a ton of money and ended up giving it to Sandman's family like he did with the Vulture's in Marvel Knights. In any case, the "villian team-up" was super forced. Probably would have been better if Venom had threatened his daughter or whatever. Going back to the Uncle Ben thing at the end served no point but for closure for a plot point that shouldn't have been there in the first place and for Harry's death scene to be rushed. If Peter hadn't spent the time going "oh I forgive you :D" he may have had the time to take Harry to one of the ambulances down below...

The jerkass: Loved Venom. No pity for him, no protector of the innocent garbage, just a real *** who got super powers. Perfect. I would have liked for him to be more focused on and more evil (maybe with the threaten Sandman idea?), but I'm satisfied with what we got. Main complaint here is his death. I was so expecting a "onoz maybe Venom isn't dead!" thing, but ah well. The weakness to soun being retained was nice, although I would have liked for his immunity to Spider Sense being mentioned... Oh, oh! Who else loved it when he made fun of the "My spider sense is tingling!" line? XD Peter never actually said that in the movies, so at least it got mentioned somehow. Hey, Venom called Peter "tiger" a few times... maybe he should have gone the whole nine yards and said "Face it, tiger, you just hit the jackpot" line while he was at it. XD

The Stacys: I was expecting Venom to kill (accidently or not) Captain Stacy, who otherwise served no point. Yeah... Maybe one of those cars came plummenting down, a stupid kid wouldn't freaking move! So Captain Stacy- on police work- pushes the kid out of the way and crash! Then Peter gets all "OMG that was your ex-girlfriend's dad you should be ashamed of yourself!" and Venom goes "Naaaah... I don't really give a damn. :D" and then we get a fight scene. Would have worked to make Venom more of a jerk, at least. As for Gwen, I don't really care about her being sidelined. She worked well enough of being Eddie's MJ methinks and she proved herself not to be a complete idiot with the dancing scene. Oh, and she could actually act! Maybe she should have played MJ. :eek:

The ending: I'm pretty dissapointed. I'm not surprised that Peter and MJ didn't get married like I was expecting, but I was expecting the traditional "Spider-Man swings around!" scene at the end. No, we just get Peter and MJ making up without words. Maybe it's just me, but I got the vibe that Peter gave up being Spider-Man at the end.

All in all, a good comic book movie that's definetly one of the best. Notas good as 2, but better than 1. It's become fashionable to bash it, but I don't know why.
 
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Frapalino said:
Pretty much everything I hate about this film is that it was turned into some crappy comedy. If they edited out all or most of the comedic parts and replaced that time with some more character devolopment I would have loved it.
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But. . .Spider-Man should be just as funny as it is dramatic. That's what I thought was missing from the first two movies.
 
I absolutely loved it. I loved every bit of it. I can easily see how some people might have a lot of problems with it, but everything just made perfect sense to me and worked extremely well.

Eddie Brock was ****ing perfect. I've already heard at least one person call him two-dimensional, but I know people in real life who are just so exactly like him, smooth-talking jerks who constantly cheat to prosper and usually get away with it, who seem good sometimes before you realize "wow....they really are an *******". Topher did a great job, and the symbiote effects? Wow. They couldn't have made it look cooler on screen.

Could the movie have worked without The Sandman? Yes. Would it have been as good? Probably not. Haden Church's perfectly acted character added a whole other level to the film and made it even more powerful. I don't care what anyone says, the forgiveness aspect was one of the best parts of the whole film.

I don't need to say much about Harry and the new Goblin. He worked a lot better than I thought he would. I kind of wish he hadn't died though, although if he had to, dying to save Peter was certainly the way to do it.

Deus Ex Butler was gimmicky, fine, but I don't even care. The rest of the movie was of such quality that it made up for it. I'm not going to knock off points for that.

I was really happy to see the return of Mr. Ditkovitch and Ursula! And Ditkovitch turning out to be a good guy was great, and fit in perfectly with the rest of the film.

Special effects couldn't have been better, most expensive movie ever made and it shows, etc. etc.

The end scene wasn't a swinging scene, but you know what? Good. That's not what the movie's about. The swinging ended the first two, and it fit then, but for the Trilogy Endgame, they wanted to make it clear that this is Peter and MJ's love story. The final shot was superb.

They wanted to make the ultimate movie about good, bad, corruption and redemptipon, and they couldn't have done a better job. I don't think it failed on any level.

10 out of 10.
 
I agree with Planet-man and nicely put dude. I gave a few points less (4 out of 5) but i agree it was a cool movie and very well done
 
Saw friday



And i dont think Eddie a jerk i mean Pete took his girl and himiliated him Brock had every right to kill him
 
Venom Melendez said:
And i dont think Eddie a jerk i mean Pete took his girl and himiliated him Brock had every right to kill him
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Every right? Dude framed Spider-Man. Lied about what he did to get a job. And not a small white lie, a huge lie that cost the Bugle reputation- whatever it had left.
 
Venom Melendez said:
Saw friday



And i dont think Eddie a jerk i mean Pete took his girl and himiliated him Brock had every right to kill him
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girl thing = yes

job = no. They were competing for the same job. Brock cheated (framing peter/spider-man) and peter told so he would get job. When it comes to the job Brock screwed Brock


Edit : damn it ice got there first
 
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Ice said:
Every right? Dude framed Spider-Man. Lied about what he did to get a job. And not a small white lie, a huge lie that cost the Bugle reputation- whatever it had left.
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That just mean he's a liar an ambitious but not a jerk
 
Saw this last night, I really liked it but I really wish that I hadn't read any of the reviews about it (took away some of the impact). Also, to me the movie felt like it had a somewhat disjointed flow. Aside from that Venom and Sandman were great, the love subplot was good (I like the way they handled Gwen), and the action was great.

8 1/2 out of 10
 
While watching this film, I really enjoyed it and that's saying a lot, because I think Spidey 2 is diabolically over-rated.

Even still, I think S3 is one of those films that you enjoy watching, but the flaws affect your reflection on it. The way I see it is that it's basically 4 GREAT films, condensed into one good one.
 
Did they even have any interaction other than that?

Grace did a really good job of playing a douchey Eddie, he made me hate him.
I admit that the first couple of scenes with him, all I could see was a cocky, dickheaded Eric Forman.
Glad it didn't stick throughout the movie.
 
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DGspider-fan said:
Did they even have any interaction other than that?
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I dont think so. He mentioned about a great night which was the coffee. He just said he was dating Gwen, but didn't seem like it.

DGspider-fan said:
Grace did a really good job of playing a douchey Eddie, he made me hate him.
I admit that the first couple of scenes with him, all I could see was a cocky, dickheaded Eric Forman.
Glad it didn't stick throughout the movie.
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I never saw it, nor thought about it until your mention now. Even so, still dont see it myself.
 
Just got back from watching Spidey 3.

To summarize my feelings on Spidey 1 - Great Peter Parker stuff, lousy villain (Green Goblin sucked - but Norman Osborne was wicked). Spidey 2 - Great villain, lousy Peter Parker stuff. Spidey 3 - Great Peter Parker and great Spidey stuff, lousy Peter Parker and lousy Spidey stuff.

C'est la vie.

Bruce Campbell's appearance made me wonder why Sam Raimi slipped in an episode of Frasier into the film, but I didn't mind. It was very funny.

The butler was bollocks. As was Sandman's, "I have a sick daughter".

That said, Sandman was brilliant. Really well done. The actor was great.

Venom suffered from Green Goblin's problem - ****ty villain, great human side. Eddie Brock was entertaining. Venom was jumbled.

Venom is one of the only supervillains in Spidey's rogues gallery that you can just do as a film. It's a solid story, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, very satisfying, and very full. It's not fatty at all. The pay off to Venom is Venom stalking Spidey, really getting under his skin by having tea with Aunt May and making MJ think Spidey's in the house (MJ was so scared of Venom, that's why Spidey ditched his black costume) and so forth. In this - he just holds her hostage.

Any villain could have done that.

In fact, they HAVE.

Spider-Man 1 - Green Goblin holds MJ hostage.
Spider-Man 2 - Doctor Octopus holds MJ hostage.
Spider-Man 3 - Venom holds MJ hostage.

What makes Venom special is the stalker aspect. This is completely missing in his movie portrayal. He's unneccessary. Hell, Venom pops up in the last 20 minutes. I don't think major villains should be cropping up at that time. He looked cool - but he wasn't cool.

Mary Jane was terrible as always. I don't know how much (if any) is Ms Dunst's fault, but the script - she's got no character to her at all. She goes from whiny to upset and then kidnapped. That's it.

The problem I have with superheroes is generally, their girlfriends aren't women I'd actually bother with. What I mean is, if I'm Superman, I don't chase Kate Bosworth. Sure, she's pretty and nice. But as soon as she starts giving me ****, I'm out of that relationship. Same as Kirsten Dunst. There's nothing there wanting me to stay and put up with her crap. Again, I don't know how much is the actor's fault (I'd say none), but I'm not interested in seeing the two together. Let him have Gwen.

I liked how neither Stacey died. Good for them!

I also loved 'evil' Peter Parker except for his appearance - making Spider-Man an emo goth was just stupid. BUT I did love that even though he was 'evil', he was still Peter Parker. I loved how Peter Parker thinks strutting is cool. Bruce Wayne wouldn't strut. Clark wouldn't strut. But Peter would. I thought that was well handled.

I also found two things that I'd never seen before and I give huge props to the Spidey 3 guys for - Firstly, I've never heard of Harry and Peter teaming up. That's a great idea and I'm surprised it's not been done before. Secondly, I'm surprised no one has ever had Sandman fly. That's superb. Sandman was really well handled (so was Harry).

I also loved Sandman's theme tune. It was really B-movie. I loved how they didn't even pretend to explain why people would be spinning sand around in a particle generator. I think the deleted scene there is some head honcho guy walking in and going,

"What the hell is the purpose of this experiment?"
"We like sand."
"... You're all fired."

Speaking of outtakes, I think there's a scene where Harry and his butler, Bernard, have to stop Harry getting married in a PG Wodehouse type of farce. Hey, if we can have a Frasier scene, we can have a Jeeves & Wooster scene.

And why did everyone forget Spidey has a Spider-Sense in this film? It never happened. Venom mentions it once and that's it.

But to get to what I think of the film - the film was sound in idea and intent, and had a lot going for it. However, it was a fatty film. It was far too long and it's production was unimaginative. Too many fights looked like a video game sequence. But the film was simply too long. It could've lost half and hour without any trouble - it spent too long on too much, creating an extremely slow-paced film. A slow pace that never really picks up. Even the final fight is very slowly paced, and somewhat unprogressive. But it's finale, like the first two, are flabby and wasteful. The best scenes of all three films should be the ending climax, but it's sad that they most certainly are not.

But it wasn't bad at all. It was okay. It didn't give me the Rage or anything, so that's good enough for me.

And it was, at times, truly, genuinely exciting and funny and even quite brutal.

I just think it could've been much better. That's what I come out with. "It was good, but it should've been better. Why wasn't it?" I feel like something's lacking. And that's because the film just didn't go far enough. We didn't reach the end of the line - we didn't see the darkest moment, and therefore, the brightest moment seems duller for it.
 
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