Raimi weaves too tangled a web in ‘Spider-Man 3’
By Ben Saylor
Insights
Published May 9, 2007

Three villains, two women and hepcat strutting all compete for attention in “Spider-Man 3,” a jumbled hodgepodge of action and soap opera.

At the start, Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) life is good. He’s finally with long-time crush Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), and Spider-Man has never been more popular, with videos of him played on the streets of New York and kids everywhere idolizing the web-slinger.

But in short order, trouble comes knocking. Where to begin? Maybe with Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), an escaped convict who stumbles into a particle radiation experiment and is changed into Sandman, whose power is, well, do I really have to explain? Marko turns to theft as a way of paying for expensive meds for his sick daughter, which is itself a way for us, the audience, to sympathize with the retro-T-shirt-wearing crook.

Then there’s Harry Osborn (James Franco), Peter’s friend-turned-enemy who’s still smarting over the death of his father, the Green Goblin, during a battle with Spider-Man. Only now, instead of getting drunk and whining about it like he did in the last installment, he gets out daddy’s deadly toys and sets off on a quest for vengeance.

Then there’s some black goop that falls to Earth on a meteorite. It is, we are told, attracted to aggression. Why, out of all the people in New York City, it goes to Peter, is never explained. It turns his suit black, and sets up the film’s most hilarious-yet-stupefying sequence. Suddenly Peter has his hair down in front of his face and is boogieing to some funky music, whilst pelvic thrusting in the direction of every female in sight. His “dark” phase culminates with some smooth moves on the floor of a jazz club, a club where Mary Jane is singing because she—oh, shoot, I’m way ahead of myself.

If you haven’t figured it out already, this movie has a lot going on. Too much, in fact, even for a near two and a half hour runtime. The sheer number of subplots is mind numbing, and even writer/director Sam Raimi and fellow screenwriters Ivan Raimi (brother of Sam) and Alvin Sargent seem at a loss as to how to keep up the pace. For every action sequence (those looking for Cleveland should keep their eyes open during the armored car scene), there’s a scene of fortune cookie advice from Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) or romantic “intrigue” with either Mary Jane or comely blonde Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who Spider-Man rescues and also just happens to be Peter’s lab partner.

If the crux of the movie, however, was Peter’s internal struggle (which I’m pretty sure was the intention), then what was Raimi thinking by reducing his hero’s “dark phase” to what essentially amounted to goofy macho posturing and an outtake from a Broadway musical? He only does one or two things that could be considered “dark.” It’s as if Raimi was scared to paint Peter’s character too darkly and kept things light to placate the popcorn-munching John and Jane Moviegoers who will fill the seats for this flick. Sam, judging from the reactions I’ve got since seeing it, you probably could have gone darker and no one would have been upset.

Maguire, whose combination of eternal boyishness and bookishness have served him well as Peter in this series, really flounders during the character’s “dark” phase. He was much more convincing as a heel in last year’s “The Good German,” where he played a U.S. Army soldier dealing in black market goods and prostitution. Dunst has never been a favorite actress of mine, but I can’t blame her entirely for the way her character is presented here, which is fleetingly and always with something to whine about.

Franco is decent as Harry, even with the ridiculous hoops Raimi and his fellow screenwriters make him jump through. Howard (Ron’s kid), is attractive but distracting as Gwen, and hopefully her character will be put to better use in future installments. Church, in the midst of a comeback following his Oscar nod for “Sideways,” gives about as good a performance as someone in a T-shirt as goofy as the one he wears could be expected to give. Topher Grace is also in the mix as slimy photographer Eddie Brock, who turns into the villain Venom after the afore-mentioned galactic goop drops onto him. Filling out the cast are the usual side players: J.K. Simmons’ samusing J. Jonah Jameson, Harris’s turn as Aunt May and the requisite cameo by Bruce Campbell, cult actor and longtime friend of Raimi’s.

The action sequences are well done, although since the movie’s plot is fairly predictable it’s hard to get caught up in them exactly. Hopefully for the next one, some more time will be spent on the script and not on how many major characters will fit in a big action scene.