Scarlet's SPIDER-MAN 3 Review
It has taken me several hours to come down from the contact high I had at the end of Spider-Man 3. I stayed around after the movie to chat with random fans, all of whom said in essence the same things: Critics are stupid, the movie wasn't perfect, but it was ridiculously great, a fitting end to an epic trilogy about a nerd from Queens' journey from teenage irresponsibility to a grown man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It would have been nearly impossible to top Spider-Man 2, which IMO is probably the best comic book movie ever made, the Gold Standard of Comic Book Moviemaking. What makes Spider-Man 3 so amazing is that it acknowledges that it has a high mountain to climb, makes occasional missteps on the way up, but the journey is so amazing that by the time you get to the end, it's all been worth every step.
The movie opens about 1-2 years after the end of SM2. Peter Parker's changed a lot, which he acknowledges in his opening narration. He's come a long way from the nerdy 17-year-old kid who got bit by a spider on a class field trip. He's been at the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, but for once in his life, things are finally going his way. Crime in the city is down, and Spider-Man's being hailed as the reason (there's even a Spider-Man video playing on the huge jumbotrons in Times Square); even the Daily Bugle's being nice to him these days. His college studies are going better now that his life is calmer; he's at the top of his class (and partnered in Dr. Connors' class with the beautiful Gwen Stacy, played by Bryce Dallas Howard). And he's a man in love, looking longingly at wedding rings in pawn shop windows and contemplating a future with Mary Jane Watson, who's making her Broadway debut tonight in a musical called "Manhattan Memories"...while an old friend-turned-bitter enemy, Harry Osborn, watches them both contemptuously from the theatre's balcony, his descent into madness that began in SM2 apparently accelerating toward its climax.
But there's an old saying that all things in life are never as bad as they seem...nor as good as they seem. And that uneasy current underlies everything in the main characters' lives. For all of Peter's happiness about finally being accepted as the man he's become (Spider-Man), he's still the emotionally scarred and grief-stricken kid who learned the hard way about great power and great responsibility the night his uncle died because of a mistake he blames himself for. For all of MJ's dreams about being an actress on stage, the reality is that she's not nearly as good as she thinks she is (Kirsten Dunst does an excellent job portraying this dichotomy) and is still the emotionally abused girl who'll do anything for any man who'll give her the time of day because her father always said she'd amount to nothing. For all of Harry's desire to avenge his father's death, he still deals with lingering feelings of love for MJ, lingering feelings of guilt over having to turn on the man he always called "buddy" and thought of as a brother, and a sense that he will never truly measure up to his father, even as insane and murderous as his father was.
At its heart, this dynamic drives all the action in Spider-Man 3, the most emotional action/adventure movie ever made. As the villains make their appearance one by one (and then two by two), each contributes to a dramatic shift in this complex triangle of emotions that bind Peter, MJ, and Harry together forever. Harry's first outing as the New Goblin, tangling with Peter dozens of stories over Manhattan, causes a complicated shift in the uneasy truce they'd had since Harry first discovered his best friend Peter Parker was his blood enemy Spider-Man two years ago; two men who loved each other like brothers turn to battle each other as only brothers who know how to hurt each other can do in one of the most dazzling CGI stunts ever put on film. The battle ends in a shocking near-decapitation of Harry by Peter's web lines, and the injury leaves Harry with gaps in his memory that wipe out his knowledge about Peter's secret identity and the death of his father. But it's that same gap that allows Harry to rediscover how much he loves MJ, who is feeling very unloved as her life falls apart around her--she gets horrible reviews for the play, she loses her job in a humiliating but all-too-common recasting, and her boyfriend is too busy either saving the world or basking in the adulation of a city that loves him (and the beautiful blonde Gwen Stacy, who takes her place in an upside-down kiss during a key-to-the-city ceremony, much to MJ's chagrin). Peter finds himself feeling relief that Harry is no longer actively trying to kill him and is thrilled that he finally has both the time and the courage to propose to the love of his life, but discovers a dangerous new enemy in Flint Marko, the molecule-shifting Sandman (Thomas Haden Church, in a very menacing and surprisingly touching performance), discovers MJ isn't as enamored with Spider-Man as the rest of the city is because Spider-Man takes up all of Peter Parker's time and energy, and then Peter discovers that Marko was the man who pulled the trigger and shot Uncle Ben, which opens all of the old wounds in Peter's soul and leaves him vulnerable, angry, bitter, and vengeful.
And, as Aunt May says, revenge is like a poison. Or, rather, like Venom.
The symbiote, a bit of black goo that rides to Earth on a meteorite and finds its way into Peter Parker's life by hopping onto his moped's license plate and hitching a ride back to his apartment, could be almost 100% symbolic and still make the same points made in the movie: Letting any one emotion take control over your life will destroy any sense of balance in the rest of it. But what happens is far more dangerous than just Peter Parker giving in to his anger and rage and desire for revenge in an outstanding and intense fight scene in the subway between the black-suited Spider-Man and the angry and confused Sandman, who doesn't want to think about the past any more and only sees the future in the money he can steal to help pay the medical bills for his dying child. What happens is Peter being taken over by a parasitic creature who wants all of this power and strength and life energy for itself.
How long does it take for one to lose themselves to an unhealthy desire for anything? Like most things, it starts small: Deal back insults to those who insult you, like Eddie Brock (Topher Grace, in a really good role as a slimeball freelance photographer) faking a photo of Spider-Man-as-villain to beat out his rival for a staff job, only to find out that Peter's not just a do-gooder Boy Scout, he's a determined man who's tired of people using him as a stepping stone to get what they want. Then, you stop caring how you look to other people, because it's all about you now. Nobody else is important. The girl who's broken it off with you in the middle of Central Park, even when you show her the ring you were going to propose to her with? Don't even try to pursue her and win her back; you've been stepped on enough. The guy you thought was your best friend calling you to have coffee with you just so he can brag about the fact that your girl went crying to him for comfort and he's the reason she left you in the lurch? Don't bother to think about the fact that he may have threatened her life or blackmailed her in some way--and, boy, does Harry Osborn do that, regaining his memory of how he was used and abused by both MJ and Peter and realizing that the only way to break Peter is to break the things that are important to him, like the woman he loves. But Harry makes a critical miscalculation because when Peter's under the influence of the suit, it's no longer about the girl, it's about Peter finally reaching the breaking point and deciding to take out his rage on the guy who stopped listening to any kind of rational explanations long ago.
For a while, it feels good to be looking out for #1. It always does. But eventually, ego-driven prideful actions always go too far, and when Peter takes Gwen Stacy to a jazz club where a humiliated MJ has had to return to waitressing again just to have a chance to once in a while take the microphone and sing, it all comes to a head. Peter's the show-off, showing the world that he's Mr. Cool, he's the greatest, he's the Amazing...well, you know, and it's time he stopped saving his best moves for crooks and supervillains. The Jazz Club dance scene isn't, as some critics have implied, the only result of Peter's flirtation with the darkness; it is, in fact, the culmination of all his ego and pride and arrogance and every good feeling he wants to have about himself being tweaked and puffed up to astronomical levels by the parasitic symbiote. And, like many a puffed-up, arrogant guy, Peter takes it way too far, doing dirty dancing with Gwen Stacy in front of MJ, who's too humiliated to sing (Gwen, to her everlasting credit, has the decency to feel embarrassed about being exploited in this way, and runs away, leaving Peter angry about once more being rebuffed by a woman), then confronting MJ at the bar, only to have the bouncers step in to have him tossed out. By this time, any sense of decency Peter has left in him is so drowned out by the feelings being overamplified by the symbiote that he's unleashing his spider strength on completely undeserving people...and eventually on MJ, whom he backhands across the club. "What's happened to you?" she asks, in tears as she lies on the dance floor. "I don't know," Peter replies, suddenly startled back to reality...but as he glances down at the exposed edges of his black suit, he suddenly realizes that he does know. He knows that he let the great power he had destroy the sense of great responsibility he had fought so hard to cultivate and shape and balance within the rest of his life.
There's more to this analysis--to me, one of the most powerful scenes in the whole movie is the moment in the bell tower as the last pieces of the symbiote fall off a naked and vulnerable Peter Parker and land on an angry, drunken, vengeful Eddie Brock (who just moments earlier had prayed to God for Him to "...kill Peter Parker") below, consuming him whole the same way it did to Peter just days earlier--but in the end, even the extreme fight with the supervillains in the movie's half-hour final climax is all about finding your way back to that balance in your life again. It's all about trying to figure out how you got so badly off-course that you'd even end up in a situation like this, and whether you have the emotional stamina to work your way back to normalcy again. And it's all about the sacrifices we all make for the ones we love--Sandman realizing he can never go home again and that all that is left of Flint Marko is his beloved Penny; Peter finally letting go of his hatred and rage about Ben's murder and forgiving Marko, then begging for forgiveness from Harry, who came to Peter and MJ's rescue despite the fact that Peter injured him so badly that one side of his face was horribly burned; Harry telling Peter that there's no need to be sorry because they were friends and there was nothing to forgive. The movie ends, not on a triumphant "Spidey swings through the streets of Manhattan" montage, but in a quiet moment of Peter and Mary Jane forgiving themselves and each other for the sins of their past as they hold each other close and dance while life goes on around them in the jazz club.
It is that last moment of emotional power--of the power of love and forgiveness triumphing over selfishness and jealousy--that made me cry and made the audience I saw the movie with burst into applause at the end. And it is that emotional power through the core of the film that will always be the difference between a good comic book movie and a great one.
Spider-Man 3 is a great one.
8.5/10, rating subject to change upon further viewings.
It would have been nearly impossible to top Spider-Man 2, which IMO is probably the best comic book movie ever made, the Gold Standard of Comic Book Moviemaking. What makes Spider-Man 3 so amazing is that it acknowledges that it has a high mountain to climb, makes occasional missteps on the way up, but the journey is so amazing that by the time you get to the end, it's all been worth every step.
The movie opens about 1-2 years after the end of SM2. Peter Parker's changed a lot, which he acknowledges in his opening narration. He's come a long way from the nerdy 17-year-old kid who got bit by a spider on a class field trip. He's been at the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, but for once in his life, things are finally going his way. Crime in the city is down, and Spider-Man's being hailed as the reason (there's even a Spider-Man video playing on the huge jumbotrons in Times Square); even the Daily Bugle's being nice to him these days. His college studies are going better now that his life is calmer; he's at the top of his class (and partnered in Dr. Connors' class with the beautiful Gwen Stacy, played by Bryce Dallas Howard). And he's a man in love, looking longingly at wedding rings in pawn shop windows and contemplating a future with Mary Jane Watson, who's making her Broadway debut tonight in a musical called "Manhattan Memories"...while an old friend-turned-bitter enemy, Harry Osborn, watches them both contemptuously from the theatre's balcony, his descent into madness that began in SM2 apparently accelerating toward its climax.
But there's an old saying that all things in life are never as bad as they seem...nor as good as they seem. And that uneasy current underlies everything in the main characters' lives. For all of Peter's happiness about finally being accepted as the man he's become (Spider-Man), he's still the emotionally scarred and grief-stricken kid who learned the hard way about great power and great responsibility the night his uncle died because of a mistake he blames himself for. For all of MJ's dreams about being an actress on stage, the reality is that she's not nearly as good as she thinks she is (Kirsten Dunst does an excellent job portraying this dichotomy) and is still the emotionally abused girl who'll do anything for any man who'll give her the time of day because her father always said she'd amount to nothing. For all of Harry's desire to avenge his father's death, he still deals with lingering feelings of love for MJ, lingering feelings of guilt over having to turn on the man he always called "buddy" and thought of as a brother, and a sense that he will never truly measure up to his father, even as insane and murderous as his father was.
At its heart, this dynamic drives all the action in Spider-Man 3, the most emotional action/adventure movie ever made. As the villains make their appearance one by one (and then two by two), each contributes to a dramatic shift in this complex triangle of emotions that bind Peter, MJ, and Harry together forever. Harry's first outing as the New Goblin, tangling with Peter dozens of stories over Manhattan, causes a complicated shift in the uneasy truce they'd had since Harry first discovered his best friend Peter Parker was his blood enemy Spider-Man two years ago; two men who loved each other like brothers turn to battle each other as only brothers who know how to hurt each other can do in one of the most dazzling CGI stunts ever put on film. The battle ends in a shocking near-decapitation of Harry by Peter's web lines, and the injury leaves Harry with gaps in his memory that wipe out his knowledge about Peter's secret identity and the death of his father. But it's that same gap that allows Harry to rediscover how much he loves MJ, who is feeling very unloved as her life falls apart around her--she gets horrible reviews for the play, she loses her job in a humiliating but all-too-common recasting, and her boyfriend is too busy either saving the world or basking in the adulation of a city that loves him (and the beautiful blonde Gwen Stacy, who takes her place in an upside-down kiss during a key-to-the-city ceremony, much to MJ's chagrin). Peter finds himself feeling relief that Harry is no longer actively trying to kill him and is thrilled that he finally has both the time and the courage to propose to the love of his life, but discovers a dangerous new enemy in Flint Marko, the molecule-shifting Sandman (Thomas Haden Church, in a very menacing and surprisingly touching performance), discovers MJ isn't as enamored with Spider-Man as the rest of the city is because Spider-Man takes up all of Peter Parker's time and energy, and then Peter discovers that Marko was the man who pulled the trigger and shot Uncle Ben, which opens all of the old wounds in Peter's soul and leaves him vulnerable, angry, bitter, and vengeful.
And, as Aunt May says, revenge is like a poison. Or, rather, like Venom.
The symbiote, a bit of black goo that rides to Earth on a meteorite and finds its way into Peter Parker's life by hopping onto his moped's license plate and hitching a ride back to his apartment, could be almost 100% symbolic and still make the same points made in the movie: Letting any one emotion take control over your life will destroy any sense of balance in the rest of it. But what happens is far more dangerous than just Peter Parker giving in to his anger and rage and desire for revenge in an outstanding and intense fight scene in the subway between the black-suited Spider-Man and the angry and confused Sandman, who doesn't want to think about the past any more and only sees the future in the money he can steal to help pay the medical bills for his dying child. What happens is Peter being taken over by a parasitic creature who wants all of this power and strength and life energy for itself.
How long does it take for one to lose themselves to an unhealthy desire for anything? Like most things, it starts small: Deal back insults to those who insult you, like Eddie Brock (Topher Grace, in a really good role as a slimeball freelance photographer) faking a photo of Spider-Man-as-villain to beat out his rival for a staff job, only to find out that Peter's not just a do-gooder Boy Scout, he's a determined man who's tired of people using him as a stepping stone to get what they want. Then, you stop caring how you look to other people, because it's all about you now. Nobody else is important. The girl who's broken it off with you in the middle of Central Park, even when you show her the ring you were going to propose to her with? Don't even try to pursue her and win her back; you've been stepped on enough. The guy you thought was your best friend calling you to have coffee with you just so he can brag about the fact that your girl went crying to him for comfort and he's the reason she left you in the lurch? Don't bother to think about the fact that he may have threatened her life or blackmailed her in some way--and, boy, does Harry Osborn do that, regaining his memory of how he was used and abused by both MJ and Peter and realizing that the only way to break Peter is to break the things that are important to him, like the woman he loves. But Harry makes a critical miscalculation because when Peter's under the influence of the suit, it's no longer about the girl, it's about Peter finally reaching the breaking point and deciding to take out his rage on the guy who stopped listening to any kind of rational explanations long ago.
For a while, it feels good to be looking out for #1. It always does. But eventually, ego-driven prideful actions always go too far, and when Peter takes Gwen Stacy to a jazz club where a humiliated MJ has had to return to waitressing again just to have a chance to once in a while take the microphone and sing, it all comes to a head. Peter's the show-off, showing the world that he's Mr. Cool, he's the greatest, he's the Amazing...well, you know, and it's time he stopped saving his best moves for crooks and supervillains. The Jazz Club dance scene isn't, as some critics have implied, the only result of Peter's flirtation with the darkness; it is, in fact, the culmination of all his ego and pride and arrogance and every good feeling he wants to have about himself being tweaked and puffed up to astronomical levels by the parasitic symbiote. And, like many a puffed-up, arrogant guy, Peter takes it way too far, doing dirty dancing with Gwen Stacy in front of MJ, who's too humiliated to sing (Gwen, to her everlasting credit, has the decency to feel embarrassed about being exploited in this way, and runs away, leaving Peter angry about once more being rebuffed by a woman), then confronting MJ at the bar, only to have the bouncers step in to have him tossed out. By this time, any sense of decency Peter has left in him is so drowned out by the feelings being overamplified by the symbiote that he's unleashing his spider strength on completely undeserving people...and eventually on MJ, whom he backhands across the club. "What's happened to you?" she asks, in tears as she lies on the dance floor. "I don't know," Peter replies, suddenly startled back to reality...but as he glances down at the exposed edges of his black suit, he suddenly realizes that he does know. He knows that he let the great power he had destroy the sense of great responsibility he had fought so hard to cultivate and shape and balance within the rest of his life.
There's more to this analysis--to me, one of the most powerful scenes in the whole movie is the moment in the bell tower as the last pieces of the symbiote fall off a naked and vulnerable Peter Parker and land on an angry, drunken, vengeful Eddie Brock (who just moments earlier had prayed to God for Him to "...kill Peter Parker") below, consuming him whole the same way it did to Peter just days earlier--but in the end, even the extreme fight with the supervillains in the movie's half-hour final climax is all about finding your way back to that balance in your life again. It's all about trying to figure out how you got so badly off-course that you'd even end up in a situation like this, and whether you have the emotional stamina to work your way back to normalcy again. And it's all about the sacrifices we all make for the ones we love--Sandman realizing he can never go home again and that all that is left of Flint Marko is his beloved Penny; Peter finally letting go of his hatred and rage about Ben's murder and forgiving Marko, then begging for forgiveness from Harry, who came to Peter and MJ's rescue despite the fact that Peter injured him so badly that one side of his face was horribly burned; Harry telling Peter that there's no need to be sorry because they were friends and there was nothing to forgive. The movie ends, not on a triumphant "Spidey swings through the streets of Manhattan" montage, but in a quiet moment of Peter and Mary Jane forgiving themselves and each other for the sins of their past as they hold each other close and dance while life goes on around them in the jazz club.
It is that last moment of emotional power--of the power of love and forgiveness triumphing over selfishness and jealousy--that made me cry and made the audience I saw the movie with burst into applause at the end. And it is that emotional power through the core of the film that will always be the difference between a good comic book movie and a great one.
Spider-Man 3 is a great one.
8.5/10, rating subject to change upon further viewings.