Discuss what you did and did not like in this SPOILER thread!
Some more review spoilery goodness:
THE BEAT reviews it, and I like the notion that the movie should have just been done completely as a musical.
And Comics Should Be Good gives an excellent S3 linkblogging roundup.
I think Raimi made a mistake in trying to keep the villians’ origins intact. There was so much crammed in there, that I didn’t like that they had to spend so much time establishing the origin of the Sandman and have a random Venom origin (falling meteorite? Really?)
I also didn’t like that we didn’t get to see black-suited Spiderman be particularly badass (except, of course, on the dance floor.) I really wanted some demonstrations of how much better the suit made him. As it stood it didn’t seem like that big a deal to get rid of the suit, and him getting rid of it didn’t have the impact it should have.
Motivations seemed to be a problem in this one. Why did he kiss Gwen Stacey, knowing that MJ was in the audience? Why did THE BUTLER have to make the decision for Goblin Jr? I remarked at the time that the best two characters in the movie were Bruce Campbell and Russian Neighbor Girl.
As for what I liked, the action was great, and surprisingly brutal- possibly the most brutal stuff I’ve seen in a PG-13 film. Gwen Stacey was likable all the way. Topher Grace’s role (Edward Brock… Junior) was different than what I’d expect from the comics, but very well done. Disco Parker was funny the first time around. Sandman’s CG transformations were seamless.
It’s hard for me to give it a rating. In some ways it’s like they stuck a bad movie and a good movie together.
1. I agree with Dave on several points.
2. I was infuriated that getting rid of the black suit seemed to have very little effect on Spiderman’s abilities.
3. I was irritated that the Butler’s purpose in that movie was to convince Goblin Jr. to let go of his grudge.
4. Bruce Campbell was awesome. I was also pleased with Topher Grace.
Now, my biggest complaint would be that this was like two movies in one. But, since they were intertwined I felt like the Sandman plot and the Venom plot were both lacking a bit. Combine that with the MJ vs. Gwen plot, the Goblin Jr. revenge plot, and the history of Spiderman plot…. oy! You get the idea.
All that being said, I really enjoyed watching the movie. I loved the action, I loved the hokie scenes (you know, the ones that Danny hated), and I thought the acting was solid. I jus wish all the plot points were not such “quick hits.”
I think Raimi may have been the best choice/style this film (given the content) could get actually. It really was a bad movie on many levels, but Raimi’s goofy humor and over the top action pulled a lot of weight.
top marks:
1. Bruce Campbell the butler scene
2. Little kid ‘dont do it spider man!’ kiss scene.
3. dance scene
4. all mega fight scens
5. mega rescue the girl from falling sky scraper scene
sure, there was some good acting here by several characters, but without the above, so much bad film making went into the decisions of the movie that i don’t think i could have watched it otherwise.
Several of the scenes Gavin mentions are perhaps the greatest examples of the wrong decisions made in this movie?
Sandman and Venom were almost spot-on perfect, and I actually enjoyed the Sandman origin portion very much. As much as there was a lot in this movie, the pacing never really dragged to the point of being painful until the VERY end, but this is possibly only true because of the things that were left out as mentioned by many people above.
I feel that a John Jameson astronaut tie-in Venom origin would not have taken MUCH more screen-time and been 10x better, but Venom was done so well in the end that I don’t really care how he got there, I just hope the character on screen is not gone entirely.
The reasons that I so strongly dislike the silly (ridiculous) scenes with Black-suited Peter is because they were not tempered, as Dave mentions, by more then one or two brief scenes with Black Spiderman doing anything. There was no consequence, and NO ONE other then Peter really realised that it was the suit influencing him, everyone else in the movie must have just thought he turned into a huge ass for no reason!
Plus: what’s with scientist-genius Peter thinking that Sandman was killed simply because he’d been mixed with water? Did he temporarily become retarded? Or is this simply too meta-thinking on my part to know that he’d come back? The whole revenge/”I killed him” scene meant nothing to me because of the simple existence of sand+water=mud.
The single most confusing aspect of the movie was the Peter/MJ break up. Harry flies into MJ’s room, smacks the shit out of her, tells her she has to break up with Pete (she knows he’s Spiderman)… and SHE DOES IT WITHOUT EXPLANATION! Now, call me crazy, but even if things were a bit rocky, don’t you think the information that your best friend is turning into a freaking super villian would be of interest? Moreover, the whole start of the movie was ridiculously random; you have a guy stumble into an experiment (who happens to be needlessly connected to Peter, oy), a meteorite/alien creature happen to land next to Spiderman, and in the middle of a rescue a smarmy photographer introduce him as “I’m Edward Brock,Junior, and I’m dating your daughter.” My friends in a were in hysterics at the sheer sloppiness. I thought a crafty wizard would show up next and tell Peter that his party lacked a magic user so they might as well join up…
You mean…Judas Traveller?! (random time-travelling mage from the Spiderman comics for those who didn’t know)