Sunday Spideyblogging, Take 2

Well, the Internets swallowed my first attempt to post this, so I will try again, only hopefully both shorter and tighter than my first try.

As I mentioned yesterday, a group of us went to see the IMAX screen version of Spider-Man 3 yesterday in Denver. Highly enjoyable evening, although this was mostly due to the company and conversation, not the movie, as it should be. Having friends rules; I wish that it hadn't taken me about 23 years to mature enough that I could really pull it off (with the notable exceptions of Mikey and Mira), but that helps me appreciate it all the more now, I guess.

As for the movie, I was very disappointed. Not so much because the movie wasn't that great, although it wasn't. But hell, most movies aren't that great, so that's no sin, especially in a popcorn flick. But I had slightly increased expectations, just because the first two were so good. The killer, to me, was the fact that there was enough material there to make a really great movie. In fact, there was enough material to make the core of 3 great movies. But, compacted down into 2.5 hours, it just didn't work at all. Arbitrary transitions, stretches of time where major plotlines are completely ignored, and at least 3 completely gratuitous retcons that do the extreme disservice of actually reducing your appreciation of the first two.

Below, my spoiler-containing critiques of the three villain plotlines.

As for Sandman, he was just a CGI looking for a plotline. The generation scene, where he gets his powers, is as beautiful a thing as I've ever seen on the silver screen. Just fantastic. And the character is cool. But he brings nothing to the table, other than forcing Spider-Man to repeat the exact same "I am so furious, I will kill you, rawr! Oh no, I really regret what I did!" plotline as we already went through in #1. Except, in #1, Peter actually could have stopped Uncle Ben from being killed, which is what drives him to act responsibly, a responsibility which we removed by changing the killer's identity. What the fuck?

Harry's plotline was great, and the development was just excellent. The fact that they dragged it through the entire second movie was fantastic forethought, I felt. And frankly, the first fight scene between the new Goblin and Spidey is the best fight scene from the series so far, and worth the $13 for the IMAX experience alone. But the butler? Really? Was there some kind of writer's strike as they were almost done writing the movie, and the only people they could find in all of L.A. to write that scene were some drunken, syphilitic sailors just in from 3 years in Malaysia? Just off the top of my head, here's how I would convince Harry that Spidey didn't kill his dad: Spidey is fighting Sandman, and Goblin shows up and also starts fighting Spider. Harry has found out that Sandman killed Uncle Ben. Spidey has the chance to let Sandman die, but instead saves him from death. In doing so, he opens himself up to attack from Goblin, who immobilizes him. Sandman gets away, and we have one of those hyperdramatic scenes where Harry is almost crying and Spidey has had his mask half-ripped off. Harry says 'why didn't you kill him, like you killed my dad?' and Peter yells back 'Because I am not a killer! But you are, so do what you have to do!' and Harry is all taken aback and Spidey manages to escape. Harry goes back home and is all tortured, like listening to Joy Division or The Cure or something, and voila! he realizes that Peter is his friend after all and rides to the rescue.

In 5 minutes, I just came up with a more dramatic, more believable, and more enjoyable solution to the problem of how Harry completes his transformation back to the good side. And for $350 million dollars, they give us the all-knowing Butler, who just forgot to mention to Harry for the last 2 years that his dad was a raving psychopath whose evil science lab was hidden in the attic and who was killed by his own sled?

And, finally, Venom. Great CGI, and the choice of Topher Grace as Eddie Brock was inspired. But, really...a spacebooger that gloms onto his moped, disappears for about half the movie, and then gives him a combover and makes him into a great piano player? I know that they can't use the comic book version of the black suit's appearance, because it's a bit much to suddenly put Spidey into the entire Marvel universe and have him whisked off to the far side of the Universe to meet the symbiote. But the Ultimate Spider-Man version would be just fine, right? It's a medical experiment, an attempt at an engineered organism which can amplify its host's healing factor, or something like that, which gets out of control. Okay, fine, we already had human amplification projects run amok in both #'s 1 and 2. But I'd rather be repetetive than retarded, and the spacebooger fails the sniff test.

So, good movie, but it could have been oh-so-much better had they tried to do less, and did what they did better, which just should not have been so hard. Very frustrating, for that reason.