Spiderman 3: What a Tangled Web We Weave

Upon leaving the theatres for Spiderman 3, I thought to myself, “Wow. I really wish that I’d checked rottentomatoes.com ahead of time so that I could have had some warning about how horrible this movie is.” Naturally, I went home and checked the website, only to find that a surprising number of critics could actually see beyond Sam Reimi’s flash and lack of appreciable plot and mistake it for a decent film.

Spiderman 3 does have its good points. Bruce Campbell of Army of Darkness fame is cast a French waiter foiling Peter Parker’s proposal plans. While his performance is quite amusing to those who have seen Army of Darkness, one has to suspect that the younger members of the audience will not catch this reference, therefore making the scene quite average overall. Campbell is funny; there’s no denying this. In fact, the restaurant scene is by far one of the best in the entire film. Sadly, it is not enough to redeem an otherwise mediocre movie.

Sam Reimi seems to be of the common idea that since 9/11, films that take place in New York need to have at least one scene that’s so obnoxiously sycophantic in its patriotism that members of the audience will groan and roll their eyes. New Yorkers are troopers; they’re strong and quite capable of bouncing back. They don’t need a scene where a swinging Spiderman lands in front of a waving American flag. That’s what we call “overkill” in the film world and it doesn’t mesh well with the rest of the film.

Critics regard Spiderman 3 as a sort of morality film, teaching us the significance of the choices that we make. In my opinion, however, a film would actually need to leave some room for ambiguity for this to be the case. Spiderman 3 is preachy, if nothing else. Every time Peter Parker reaches for the dark suit (you know, the one that’s not red, white, and blue), you know that bad things are going to happen. Of course, you know that nothing that he’s doing is actually his own fault, because he’s being controlled by the dark power of the suit. Superheroes may be morally infallible, but this is ridiculous.

Peter Parker/Spiderman is supposed to be an Everyman, one with whom the average person can easily relate. There’s no relating to Spiderman in the third film, however, as he is presented time and again as a simpering kid from Queens who is constantly picked on (and conversely as an egocentric superhero without concern for the feelings of others. Spiderman is really just a whiny jerk in this third movie, completely devoid of any and all middle ground. When he goes over to the dark side, Peter Parker begins sporting a new (and greasy) haircut, made to match his bad attitude. Even when bad things begin to happen to Peter (his girlfriend leaves him, his best friend wants him dead), you don’t really feel sorry for him, because he brought it on himself.

The plot of the movie is jerky, starting out with Spiderman being chased by Harry (also known as Green Goblin, Jr.). This completely random action serves as the impetus for the entire rest of the movie, which doesn’t manage to get any more cohesive, regardless of the fact that it’s far longer than it could ever need to be. At one point, an extra character comes forward with information that completely changes the course of the movie and saves our superhero from certain destruction. One wonders, then, why this extra has kept quiet throughout an entire trilogy and chooses only to come forward in the absolute nick of time. It, along with many other plot details, are far too convenient.

The real problem with Spiderman 3, however, lies in the fact that it took all the differences in plot between the comic book and the first two movies and sought to exploit them. True Spiderman fans can ignore the strange meld between the characters of Mary Jane and Gwen in the first two films, but in the third one, we see the two girls side by side, and long-term Spiderman fans will cringe in horror as they see their childhood heroes and loves butchered at the merciless hands of Hollywood.

Young children might find something of meaning in this new rendition of Spiderman, but old fans and film students the world over will fail to be impressed with flashy opening credits and overwhelmingly obvious tactics on the part of the director and cast.