I’m Already in Denial

By Fearless Young Orphan Spider-Man 3 (2007) Directed by Sam Raimi

Two weeks ago, I would not have considered chunking Spider-Man 3. Know why? Because I had only seen it once. I caught all three Spider- Man films directed by Sam Raimi during their opening weeks in theaters. I enjoyed the first, absolutely loved the second, and was eager for the third. I went and saw it. I was underwhelmed, but forgiving. I believe I was I know how he feels. under the influence of cultural hysteria.

Everything in the media and in my own affectionate heart was telling me that I must have liked this movie. Sure, it had its flaws. Many of them. But I could forgive the flaws, because it was Spider-Man! It was Sam Raimi! I’ve adored Sam Raimi’s work since The Evil Dead and he would never do something like . . . well, no, it’s just . . . let’s talk about something else.

Okay, so for about four years now I’ve been thinking that the only real problem with Spider-Man 3 was that it crammed too much into one film. From the day I saw the movie I was of the opinion that the villain Venom should have had a separate film which featured him alone as the villain. Making Venom a bookend to a film that already had two serviceable villains in the form of Sandman and Harry-as-New-Goblin was wasteful. Venom is awesome and deserves his own movie, particularly since Raimi wisely used Topher Grace in the role of Eddie Brock and, hell, the sometimes under-noticed Grace was all over that part. He was absolutely the most interesting thing in the entire film. There’s your Spider-Man 4, right there. If Venom was a must, then forego Sandman at least. But of course, that is hindsight, and after a while it became clear that the series would be rebooted. All I could do was shrug and say, “Oh well.” Last week, my friends, I saw Spider-Man 3 for the second time. I suspect that I had not seen it again yet (normally I rent these movies almost as soon as they are released on DVD) because my subconscious knew something and was hiding it from me. This movie is terrible. It is damn near unbearable to watch. There is so much wrong with it that the few qualities it does have (good acting, for one thing, plus an occasional sense of humor and two minutes with Bruce Campbell on screen) cannot salvage the film, and instead emphasize what a mess it is. I almost don’t know where to begin. So what does the Orphan do when she doesn’t know where to begin? She makes a list.

And I am not going to outline the plot for you, sorry. I’ll assume you’ve seen the film – you and me, and everyone else looking forward to it back in 2007. Otherwise, trust me on this and go read some of my Foreign Classics discussions – those poor things don’t get any attention.

1. THERE IS TOO MUCH SHIT HAPPENING IN THIS MOVIE. I’ve already mentioned this, and it remains the biggest problem. We have too many villains, too many subplots, too many relationships shifting ground. The movie cannot juggle them all coherently and certainly does not have time to devote each facet the attention it deserves. I found myself watching scenes that had to do with a subplot that had not been mentioned in half an hour and having to scramble to remember what was going on with that particular part of the story. Two of the subplots, however, take up enormous chunks of film time and are utterly useless, those being:

a. Mary friggin’ Jane. I have had it up to my eyeballs with these movie bitches who say that they aren’t afraid to face the consequences of being the significant other of an in-demand hero. They aren’t afraid to face it, no, not until it inconveniences them and then suddenly, there’s a crisis and they get all needy. I’m sorry her acting career isn’t all she dreamed. Maybe she should avoid musical theater. I recall she was doing well in Oscar Wilde plays in Spider-Man 2. Or maybe she should grow a goddamn backbone and just tell Peter what the hell her problem is, rather than expecting him to read her tiny mind. Peter Parker is a nice guy; he’s too nice, if anything, and if she’d just get over her drama queen PMS and say, “HEY, listen, I got fired from my job and I feel like shit, and I could use a little support here,” then he’d probably be her go-to guy. She’s mad because in his Spider-Man persona he kisses Gwen Stacy. Princess there needs to grow up: that was a stage kiss. Did she suppose that during her stage career, she was never going to have to kiss anyone else? She’s hurt because Peter is a little self-centered in his newfound fame. Peter is a young man who’s never been in a serious relationship before her; perhaps she can cut him a little slack. You know, he’s not ignoring her for the sake of playing Halo. He’s fighting crime and saving lives. These two young people spend an extraordinary amount of time in this movie being mad and anxious at each other without really knowing why, but subjecting us to their infuriating and unproductive bickering nonetheless. And DO NOT try to tell me that the relationship between Mary Jane and Peter must be rocky because it has something to do with his need to rescue her – for God’s sake, this girl has been perilously hanging from webs for three films now whether she’s dating Peter, not dating Peter, banging Bruce Campbell (you go girl), on stage, off stage, and whether or not she has a clue that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. She is the target no matter what, and Peter will rescue her, no matter what. The relationship problems here are so thick that Gwen Stacy looks ever more appealing. She’s sweet and smart, and easy on the eyes.

b. Uncle friggin’ Ben. Sandman is a small-time thief named Flint Marco (Thomas Haden Church, an actor I adore) and even though two movies ago Peter Parker moved past his Uncle Ben’s Death Guilt Complex, suddenly we’re served up a bit of revisionist history that includes Flint Marco’s participation in Uncle Ben’s carjacking and death. This is an utterly unnecessary headache and really, the only thing we’d care to see less than Peter whining about his Uncle’s death is Peter whining about Mary Jane. But no, we have to go through all this shit again. One could argue that Peter must have a personal issue with Flint Marco in order to “kill” the man under the influence of the evil black gooey spider-suit, but I say no. Evil black gooey spider-suit could produce murderous impulses all on its own – in fact it does – ratcheting up Peter’s aggression until he makes a deadly error. Honestly do we need to see Peter and Aunt May crying over this again? No we do not. And Sandman/Flint Marco is already an interesting villain without the added drama of Uncle Ben: he’s got a sick kid and steals money for her sake. That’s a cliché, but no more a cliché than avenging a dead relative, and Thomas Haden Church is a good enough actor to pull it off.

2. EVERYBODY CRIES, BUT NOBODY CRIES AS MUCH AS SPIDER-MAN. Oh my God, stop tearing up. Get some control over Is this intense brooding? Or is he just yourself. Grow a pair. You’ve got about to cry? I bet he’s just about to cry. superpowers. Maybe find your way past being an emotional bitch. Or if not, then please, someone ask Mr. Raimi to stop those long, lingering shots of Tobey Maguire’s red-rimmed eyes as he snivels through yet another bout of depression.

3. EVERYTHING IS A GODDAMN COINCIDENCE. You’d think there were only about ten people living in the whole city of New York, and that the entire area of the city is two square blocks. On my second viewing, I counted eight wild coincidences that shove the plot along. Let us see if I can name them all here.

i. Evil gooey black gunk from space crashes to Earth in a meteor which lands within a hundred yards of Peter Parker so it can crawl into his backpack and go home with him.

ii. Peter is in a class with Gwen Stacy

iii. Who is dating Eddie Brock

iv. Who is Peter’s competition at the newspaper;

v. And Gwen is on a modeling job in a building that suffers severe damage from an out-of-control crane, thus Peter has to rescue her.

vi. And Gwen is also the police chief’s daughter, so that said chief can see that Peter is awarded the key to the city so there can be a big ceremony that the Sandman can interrupt.

vii. Flint Marco, who escapes prison and is turned into the Sandman thanks to a wacky science experiment, also happens to be involved in Uncle Ben’s death.

viii. Eddie Brock happens to walk into the very church where Peter is tearing off his evil gooey black spider-suit so it can fall from the bell tower onto Eddie and turn him into Venom. Eddie went in there to pray, folks. Nothing else.

ix. Harry just happens to lose his memory of all the events that have occurred recently so that he and Pete can be friends again for like, half an hour - a soap opera device that is eventually pointless since the amnesia is obliterated later and we’re back to Goblin-hijinks in no short order. The amnesia serves no point whatsoever.

So actually, that’s nine, unless you want to call that last one nothing more than a dead- ended subplot. Those are the big ones. We won’t even get into the little ones, like how people manage to find one another so easily in a city that size, or how Peter can hear exactly the report he needs to hear on the scanner, or how characters seem to have inexplicable knowledge about each others’ back-stories, or how Harry suddenly sprouts an Alfred-like butler who knows enough information to share at precisely the right time to avert calamity. This film series has always relied heavily on coincidences (Spider-Man 2 contained some doozies) but has been entertaining enough to render them acceptable. In this case, it all smacks of incredibly lazy plotting. How much of it is even necessary? Couldn’t Spider-Man be given the key to the city even if Gwen Stacy weren’t the police chief’s daughter? Couldn’t Eddie Brock hate Peter Parker just for the already-established rivalry between them? Why must everyone have six reasons for doing something?

The only possible reason I can fathom for this kind of bullshit is that these are story themes lifted and abridged from the comic book series, and the more delicate connections remain unexplained. Hell, even if that is the case, it doesn’t make this movie any better.

4. THE WRITING. Heaven help us. Most of the time we’re simply in the realm of clichés. “A man has to put his wife first.” “I want to spend the rest of my life on stage with you in the front row.” “Your uncle wouldn’t have wanted this.” “All I have now is my daughter.” And so on. That kind of crap is fairly dull, especially since we heard most of it in Spider-Man 2 and in Spider-Man, and in a lot of episodes of Smallville and some of it on The Young and the Restless. But then on occasion, the script gets so bad it’ll make you howl. Just try watching the scene of a live news report at the umpteenth abduction of Mary Jane, as the earnest young newscaster is reporting to the cameras. Her lines are a scream. The poor woman. I hope this part helped her acting career. She says shit like, “We only have to wonder how Spider- Man can hope to prevail against such overwhelming odds,” and “He seems to have come out of nowhere, just in the nick of time.” Um, Mr. Raimi? You’re supposed to impart this information to us through use of storytelling, not through the affirmations of an expository news reporter who has obviously been speeding for three days.

5. SAM RAIMI APPARENTLY THINKS WE’RE IDIOTS. This movie contains insulting flashbacks which imply that we as the audience can’t be expected to understand the simplest things. Loud noises bother the evil black gooey gunk from space. We get it. When Peter thinks of a way to defeat Venom, do we really need to see a flashback of something that occurred about twenty minutes ago, reminding us of information we have been given? No, we do not.

6. PETER PARKER’S “EVIL” DORK. Evil black gooey gunk from space is probably regretting the day it decided to bond with Peter Parker, because what he does with his dark side is act like the biggest dork on the Western Hemisphere. I’m not sure what the goal of these moments was. Possibly to tell us that Peter has no true evil in him? Um, yeah, we all kind of knew that already. Eddie Brock really embraces the dark side . . . ah, it’s a shame, it could have made such a cool movie . . . but not our Peter. I’m sure that there are many of us who’d like to forget Tobey Maguire’s dance number, probably including Tobey Maguire. I’m going to throw a bone here and say that I saw potential in these scenes of broody-angry-dorky-Peter, because Maguire is a fine actor, and if only someone had been brave enough not to play it all for humor until the moment Peter punches Mary Jane (accidentally, but it is fun to watch on a loop), things could have been more interesting. Alas.

7. WHAT THE HELL ARE THE SUBPLOTS DOING WHILE OTHER SUBPLOTS ARE WORKING THEMSELVES OUT? There was so much going on in this movie that occasionally a scene would begin and I’d say, “Oh right, I’d forgotten about (fill in the blank).” And this is the second time I’ve seen this movie, and please recall that Sam Raimi thinks we’re idiots who can’t follow the most basic plot threads.

Purely from a technical standpoint, the last half hour of the movie has some bad subplot issues. At the final battle between Peter, Harry, Sandman and Venom, there are a lot of things happening. The actual super-fighting is only a small part. Movies can show us an order of scenes that we implicitly understand are happening simultaneously, of course. However in this case, there is so much going on that the times don’t match up. For example, Venom viciously stabs Harry. Harry falls to the ground. Venom leaps away to fight Spider-Man. Mary Jane rushes up to help Harry. She offers to go get medical aid. Harry says, “No, stay with me.” She does so. Now we go to Peter, who has to have a climactic battle with Venom, and then a lengthy conversation of confessions and redemption with Sandman. It’s rather protracted. Finally Peter rejoins Mary Jane and Harry and they engage in an uncomfortable death scene against a sunrise, during which everyone has teary red-rimmed eyes. The building they are in is surrounded by news crews, police and emergency services. Mary Jane had plenty of time to get help for Harry; it’s not as if she had to run clear across all two blocks of New York. Or she could have motioned from the ledge or something, if it was so important that she not leave Harry alone. People are watching from the ground. Harry could have some surgery, patch him up. I don’t know. It just seems to me that Harry and Mary Jane had to wait an awfully long time, holding hands and looking sad, while Peter wrapped up two other subplots so he could come join them in a third and fourth. And, off topic I know, but did anyone else think Harry’s facial burns repaired into hideous scars awfully fast? 8. WE ARE BORED. Amazingly, in the midst of three villains, fourteen subplots, nine coincidences, six moral quandaries and thirty-five shots of Tobey Maguire’s red- rimmed eyes, this movie is dull. There is perhaps half an hour of real action in the film (which is almost 140 minutes long) and the remainder of it is all that awful dialog and crying and angst and relationship-juggling. Some of these scenes go on for decades. If Peter and Mary Jane are in the same room, you can feel your heart rate slow down. Whenever Peter talks to his Aunt May, time actually stops. No seriously, check your clock. Someone ought to write to Stephen Hawking about this.

Caution: Do not look at this picture for more than 5.5 seconds, as previous incidences of time continuum distortion have occurred. My dog was exposed to it, and she vanished for a week and when she reappeared, she was wearing a rabies vaccination tag dated 1972. I don’t like bitching at Spider-Man 3. If I had not bothered to watch it a second time, I would have always recalled it as a mediocre entry in a series that I liked. What hurts most is that I can see its potential quality. We have a great director, great actors (honestly, there’s no one in this movie I don’t like, and there’s no one who couldn’t give a killer performance if allowed), and it’s full of classic comic-book characters. Must we really resort to rehashing old conflicts and dating troubles? Is there no more to Spider-Man than this? Of course there’s more. We just need someone to be brave enough to show it. I’m cautiously hopeful about the reboot, mostly because Andrew Garfield is a startlingly good young actor and Emma Stone might be able to put some much-needed dry wit into the love interest role.

As things stand today I’ll have to rank Spider-Man 3 as one of my major movie sequel disappointments, getting close to that detested spot occupied by Alien 3, which was not a bad movie per se but was a terrible follow-up to a couple of my favorite films and . . . and oh my god, just let me get back to my mantra: It never happened. It NEVER HAPPENED. Spider-Man 3, maybe you’d like me to think the same? I’m willing to do it for you.

NO! NO! NO!