Hello! Hello, you sexy devils. I know I've been gone for a while, but I still love you all and if there's anybody I trust to run my empire, it's you guys. I thought I'd celebrate my comeback with another review, this time of a film significantly lower on the Badassometer than Scott Pilgrim. I speak of course, of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3.
Now, I don't want to jump on the bandwagon and rip this movie to shreds - ahh, hell, of course I do. THIS MOVIE SUCKS MAJOR ASS. As both a movie fan, a comic book fan and a human being I can safely say that this is one movie that actually distresses me, keeps me awake at night, because there are bad movies and then there are movies that COULD have been awesome but, for whatever reasons, aren't. Spider-Man 3 fits into this category perfectly.
First of all I will outline its good points. The fight scenes and special effects are, quite simply, spellbinding and the best I've seen in any comic book movie. The effects on Sandman and the symbiote are brilliant. The acting is, for the most part, good, especially from the man I believe is J Jonah Jameson incarnate: JK Simmons. The Spidey movies have always had great music, and this installment is no exception. And finally, it is extremely funny when it wants to be. Those are the good points. Now.... *clicks fingers* for the bad.
This movie is rife with plot holes. The first is Harry Osborn's transformation. Throughout these movies, the main continuous story arc has been the relationship between Harry Osborn, Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker. Harry starts as a troubled young man with a crush on MJ, an evil father and a superhero for a best friend. He then becomes a jackass alcoholic businessman, without a crush on Mary Jane, without an evil father and with a superhero for a best friend. By the beginning of the third, he is a supervillain without a crush on Mary Jane, without an evil father and with a superhero for an enemy. Seems plausible enough right? Well, barely ten minutes into the movie he hits his head and gets what I refer to as 'Conveniencenesia', losing all his memory. For the next hour or so he becomes 'old Harry', but instead of turning into the troubled young man with a crush on Mary Jane, he becomes this preposterously nice, goofy, happy character without a care in the world. Seriously, it's so weird. There's a scene when Mary Jane calls him up and he's in the middle of painting some kind of masterpiece. It's just a split second, but it confuses me to no end. Why did a bump on the head make him this way? I am reminded of the Futurama episode where Fry gets worms and becomes a charming, artistic hearthrob, except it makes far less sense than anything Matt Groening has ever dreamt up. Forgive me if I'm wrong about this, but I was under the impression that people who suffer from amnesia generally become depressed, scared and confused individuals, unable to remember key details from their lives, constantly forgetting and misunderstanding things that are common knowledge to their friends and family. But whatever, I'm sure Raimi and co did there homework.
It may well be down to the performance James Franco gives. He's a fine actor and a.... *sigh* a beautiful man, but somebody should have told him to tone it down a little. He's so damn happy, I don't think you seem him frown once during his 'Conveniencenesia' period. That's what's so wrong with this freaking movie, it's full of over the top performances. Ehhhh. Anyway, Harry touches a mirror or something and Willem Defoe's face ZOOOOOMS towards the screen, causing Harry to 'remember. Remember EVERYTHING!!!' He turns evil once again, but now of course he's a DIFFERENT kind of evil from earlier on, this time becoming a scheming, grinning, pie-eatin' pantomime villain rather than a brooding, revenge-seeking, neglected son. Then at the last minute he turns into a generic good guy again. Seriously, Harry Osborn goes through about one hundred different personalities in this trilogy. LET'S COUNT THEM SHALL WE
There's Troubled Harry from Spider-Man 1, then there's Angry Harry from Spider-Man 1, then there's Yuppie Harry from Spider-Man 2, then there's Alcoholic Harry from Spider-Man 2, then there's Vengeful Harry from Spider-Man 2, then there's Goblin Harry from Spider-Man 3, then there's Conveniencenesia Harry from Spider-Man 3, then there's Magnificent Bastard Harry from Spider-Man 3, and then finally 'Awwwwww' Harry from Spider-Man 3. What is that, 8 different Harrys over the course of three movies? Dayum. Look, I realise it's important for characters to develop over a trilogy's story arc, but by the end of it all Harry Osborn is several different people. Ughhh. Let's move on.
Sandman's entire character is completely fucking ridiculous. So we have an escaped burglar with 'bad luck' who has some kind of dying adorable child and a wife who lives in Elwood Blues' apartment 'in the presence of great truth' whatever the fuck that means. He falls into a giant sandpit (you know, the kind that are just lying around in fields with no safety rail or anything all over America) in which some scientists are testing the effects of sand when spun around real fast. They assume he's a bird (you know, one of the many man-shaped birds that occupy America) and start up the experiment. He turns into some.... some kind of.... SAND....MAAAANN!!!!!! but his little necklace thing manages to stay intact, despite being with him the entire time. I guess because it was in his pocket it stayed alright, but then there are scenes when he's floating around as a cloud guy and the necklace thing stays with him.... maybe it was floating with him, I don't know.
He wants to kill Spider-Man, because apparently he won't let Sandman take care of his sick daughter. Rather than, you know, explaining his situation to Spider-Man, a fellow superhuman, and asking for his help, he clumsily destroys a street in an attempted robbery. Smooth.
Now, I like Thomas Haden Church, I do. He seems like a nice guy, but the only movie I've ever liked him in was George of the Jungle, and this is no exception. His entire performance is so weird. He always looks kind of pained and frustrated, like his face is being stretched over his skull. There's a scene in which Spider-Man rips a water pipe apart, the camera zooming sharply in on Sandman's face with each screw that pops out of the pipe. The last time this happens Church sort of does a little face quirk, like he's thinking 'Daww, nuthin ever goes right for me! Guess I'm just a born loser. Here we go again!'. I know I'm shamelessly nitpicking, but I don't care, I'm fresh from watching the DVD and I have been living on Fruitella for the past five days and I feel my brain may be dissolving or something and I needed to get these thoughts off my chest. At the end of the movie, Sandman asks Spider-Man for forgiveness after pounding him into the ground seconds earlier, then floats away to a life of.... uhhh.... floating. His character sucks, and he was never a fantastic villain in the first place. Give me Vulture or Mysterio or Lizard next time, characters you can actually give depth and interest to. Some say without Venom this film would be great, but that's just not true. Sandman is only slightly better a character. Not to mention the fact that he is preposterously shoehorned into the franchise as Uncle Ben's 'real killer' in a pathetic attempt to give him a reason for even being in the fucking movie. EDIT: After watching the end, I find myself wildly cackling at the flashback of Uncle Ben's murder. Sandman just sort of raps on the window and helps the old man out of the car, politely asking if he can borrow the vehicle. He ponders whether or not he should proceed with the robbery and then accidently shoots Ben to death and gives a 'what have I DONE???!!!!' face. I lol'd.
Blleerrrghh, let's move on.
Venom, played by Topher Grace, is perhaps the worst and weirdest fictional antagonist I've ever come across in all my life. A meteorite falls from the sky with no explanation or reason and splurges out a black liquid (the symbiote), which attaches itself to Peter Parker's scooter and lives with him unnoticed for a while. When he's at his lowest, it crawls all over his costume and turns him into Black Suit Spider-Man. Even though later, he's got the black suit and the regular suit seperately in a cupboard, even though the black suit IS the regular suit, just covered with the symbiote, because we see it envelop the regular suit earlier on, except then the symbiote comes off and Spider-Man is completely naked underneath.... um. Anyway. Spider-Man gets rid of the symbiote (after some bizarre dancing, which is not so much funny or rage-inducing as it is baffling) and it plops down onto Eddie Brock's face. Yes, that's right, Spider-Man's parasitic liquid drips onto Eddie Brock's gazing face as Spidey writhes naked above. In a church. Abraxas, feel free to make of this what you will.
Eddie Brock is not evil or crazy, he's just an annoying douche who, for reasons unknown, wants Peter Parker's job. Or IS he meant to be crazy? There are certainly signs of this. He frequently makes weird comments about Gwen, first saying they are dating and later claiming he plans to propose despite them only ever having coffee. He has a complete breakdown after being fired from a job he didn't even have yet and asks GOD to kill someone he screwed over in the first place. However, these don't strike me as the actions of an insane supervillain, more the actions of a complete fuckwit. AAAAAAnyway, Spider-Man's black suit/symbiote/sperm envelops Brock and he turns into Venom, who somehow knows everything about Sandman and Peter and gets Sandman to team up with him in a grand plan to..... humiliate Spider-Man. Not murder or destroy, just humiliate.
Yeah.
Anyway, he is only ever Venom for about five seconds at a time, because every time we get a glimpse of him his spookyface peels back to reveal the oddly fanged Topher Grace (who, once again, is naked under the suit despite being fully clothed when he transformed. Weird) in all his not-at-all-threatening glory. He is incredibly easily defeated by Spider-Man banging poles together around him and making him bug out. He then explodes or something, I don't know (I stopped watching because Hot Fuzz had started on ITV 1 and is the far superior flick). So, that's Venom.
The worst part of this movie is the character of Harry's loyal butler, 'Bernard', who has had about three off screen lines throughout the trilogy until now. He pops up persuading Two-Face - I mean, Harry to turn good again by telling him his father died by his own hand. Gee, Bernard is a great guy. Not only was he fully aware that BOTH the Osborns were murderers and madmen, but he could have saved Harry countless times by telling him how his father died at ANY point in the last few years. Is he fucking CRAZY?! What the HELL were they thinking?! Why didn't they just have GOD appear from the heavens before Harry and tell him what happened? That would have angered me less. This is the worst fucking deus ex machina I have ever seen, and I am shaking with rage as I type this. Good God. Fuckadoodle doo. CuntburgerfucktwatterlycumquatfuckbraintrollsuckingarsewipeANAL JIZZ CLOWNS! WHY THE FUCK DO I BOTHER???!!! THEY COULD HAVE ENDED THIS FUCKING STORY TWO MOVIES AGO! WHY WOULD BERNARD WAIT TILL NOW TO TELL HARRY?!! WHY WOULDN'T HE TELL EVERYBODY STRAIGHT AFTER HE FOUND OUT! WHAT POSSIBLY REASON COULD HE HAVE HAD FOR KEEPING SHTUM? IS HE A FUCKING ASS?!?!?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Somebody, please tell me! Tell me how I fix this! How do I calm down! HOW?! HOOOOOOWWWW
This is THE DOCTOR, signing out, deeply sorry for the nonsensical bullshit posing as a movie review, incredibly glad to be back and FUCKING angry about the shitfest that is Spider-Man 3. I am truly apologetic for the above article's shittiness. Goodnight. Now WHERE THE FUCK IS MY FRUITELLA?!
