Movie Review – Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Finishing out Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is the third installment, creatively named Spider-Man 3, released on May 4, 2007.
Like 2004′s Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3 brings back the familiar cast of the first two characters along with some people we haven’t seen since the first movie. Tobey Maguire reprises his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, Kirsten Dunst is Mary Jane Watson, James Franco is Harry Osborn / New Goblin, and J.K. Simmons is once again the leader of the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson. Spider-Man 3 introduces us to Thomas Hayden Church as Flint Marko / Sandman, Topher Grace as Eddie Brock / Venom, and Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacy.
Spider-Man 3 continues some time after the events of Spider-Man 2.
New York City is currently on a Spider-Man craze. The hero is immortalized and the talk of the town. Peter Parker is making a living as a photographer for the Daily Bugle, doing well in his college studies, and very much in love with Mary Jane Watson. Mary Jane has advanced from the small stage and is now starring in Broadway productions. Harry Osborn, in the meantime, still carries his grudge towards Parker and has been tinkering with his dad’s weapons at Oscorp. He’s also subjected himself to his father’s performance enhancing drugs from the first movie. Harry’s hatred towards Peter has reached its breaking point.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
In the beginning of the movie we see Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) spending time together in the evening. Not too far away a meteor crashes in the park. Unknown to Peter and MJ, a strange black substance crawls from the wreckage and attaches itself to Peter’s moped. He unknowingly transports the extraterrestrial creature back to his apartment.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
One evening while driving around on his moped, Harry Osborn (James Franco) attacks Peter Parker. He uses an advanced glider (more like a flying snowboard) and the two of them battle above and between the buildings in New York City. During a break in the fighting Harry unmasks himself and tells Peter Parker why he’s fighting him. Parker tries to convince him that his dad was evil, but Harry ignores him. The two of them continue fighting until Peter finally knocks down Harry, indirectly causing him to hit his head against a metal pipe. After taking his friend to the hospital, Peter learns that Harry now has short-term amnesia and doesn’t remember his feud with Peter.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
Next we learn about escaped convict, Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church). After escaping the police, Marko visits his wife and ill daughter for a few moments. He tries to tell them that he’s not a bad person, just somebody with bad luck, but his wife doesn’t seem to want to listen. Part of Marko’s back story is that he’s been on a quest to get money to pay for his daughter’s doctor bills. Peter Parker and Aunt May later learn that it was Marko who actually killed Uncle Ben in the first movie, and that the person that Peter pursued, Dennis Carradine, was just an accomplice in the robbery. Marko tries to flee from the police by breaking into a laboratory, but instead finds himself trapped in a particle accelerator. The machine is activated by scientists and we see Marko get transformed into the Sandman.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
One day there’s a freak accident with a construction crane. The crane is wilding swinging a massive beam, and it strikes an office building. Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) is performing in a photo shoot when the beam strikes the office windows. The crane swings around a second time and takes out the floor. As Gwen Stacy is falling to the ground, Spider-Man grabs her and saves her life. Once on the ground, Spider-Man meets Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), the new (and arrogant) photographer at the Daily Bugle. Eddie is supposedly dating Gwen Stacy, but the movie doesn’t get into those details.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
Back at the Daily Bugle, we see that J. Jonah Jameson (J. K. Simmons) likes Eddie Brock’s photos better than Parker’s. There’s an open staff position for a full-time photographer, so J. Jonah Jameson has Brock and Parker compete for the job. He tells them that whichever person comes up with a photograph of Spider-Man committing a crime will get the job.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
Sometime later, New York City is hosting a ceremony to honor Spider-Man and give him a key to the city. Gwen Stacy is one of the main speakers, and when Spider-Man appears, she give him an upside down kiss like Mary Jane did in the first movie. Mary Jane and Harry Osborn are watching this from the crowds, and MJ storms off after watching the scene. A sandstorm suddenly appears and attacks an armored delivery truck, and Spider-Man chases after it. Inside the truck Spidey meets the Sandman. The two of the fight, and Spider-Man quickly realizes that this is a different kind of an opponent. The Sandman beats Spider-Man relentlessly. The fight ends when Spider-Man is forced to save the armored truck’s drivers when it’s about to crash.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
Not long after that, Peter Parker takes Mary Jane to a fancy French restaurant. Parker has the restaurant’s maître d (played by Bruce Campbell) help him with a marriage proposal to Mary Jane. Things don’t go well, especially after Gwen Stacy arrives, and Peter skips the proposal. That night the black substance attaches itself to Peter Parker while he’s asleep. Parker awakens dangling from a skyscraper, his suit changed to black instead of the usual red and blue color pattern. He likes this new look and his enhanced powers. As we later see, it’s not just his outer look that’s also changed.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
When Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s relationship begins to suffer, MJ seeks solace with Harry Osborne. Harry is still suffering from amnesia, but the two of them seem to make a great couple. While their earlier relationship in the first Spider-Man movie never really got off the ground, this newer relationship in the third movie seems much more genuine and realistic, like Mary Jane really enjoys spending time with Harry. After being fired from her Broadway acting job, Harry seems to be the only person who understands and cares for Mary Jane.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
One of the bigger talking points of Spider-Man 3 is when the unknown organism affects Peter Parker’s personality, bringing out his more vocal and “cool” alternate side. This alternate version of Parker causes Eddie Brock to lose his job (he exposed Eddie’s fake photos), get himself a higher paying job at the Daily Bugle, and be more flamboyant in front of the ladies. One evening he takes Gwen Stacy on a date to the jazz nightclub where Mary Jane works as a singer. Peter ultimately gets into a fight with some of the jazz workers, and after accidentally striking Mary Jane, he finally realizes what a changed person he has become.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
Harry Osborn has a hallucination of his father, Dr. Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), and he regains his memory. Harry uses his influence to get Mary Jane to break up with Peter Parker. After the nightclub scene where Peter fought the workers, Parker retreated to a church tower to try to fight against the power of the black suit. It’s not until he hits a church bell that the substance weakens and he’s able to remove it. Down in the church, Eddie Brock is praying for vengeance against Peter Parker. He hears Parker fighting, and when watching the fight from below, the substance lands on him. Eddie Brock is consumed by the power of the substance and transforms into Venom.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
Vemon later finds the Sandman and convinces him to join forces against Spider-Man. Together they capture Mary Jane and hold her hostage. Peter Parker seeks out Harry and tries to convince him to help him save Mary Jane. Harry refuses, but it’s not until Harry’s butler tells Harry about what really happened to his father does Harry finally see that Parker has been truthful the entire time.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – (c) Columbia Pictures
Spider-Man swings up and tries to save Mary Jane from Venom and Sandman. He’s able to hold them off until Venom pins Spider-Man to a beam and the massive Sandman beats on him relentlessly. Harry Osborn suddenly appears and his diversion allows Spider-Man to escape. Together, Peter and Harry fight the Sandman and save Mary Jane. Venom attacks Peter again, but Harry sacrifices himself for his friend. Peter then tries to free Eddie Brock from the substance, but Eddie refuses to give up that much power. Eddie and the substance are both destroyed from one of Harry’s pumpkin bombs. Sandman reappears and tells Peter his side of the story, seeking forgiveness for what he did to his uncle.
The movie ends with Peter Parker visiting the jazz club where Mary Jane works. The two of them are last seen dancing together, giving assumption that the two characters become a couple again.
So is Spider-Man 3 any good?
My view of the movie is that Spider-Man 3 has a bunch of Spider-Man elements thrown together into something that could have been a really good movie. In other words, it’s one giant mess.
One of the problems with Spider-Man 3 deals with the villains. While the Sandman is a tough opponent for Spider-Man, the Flint Marko character feels like he was thrown into the movie just to add a little more of the back story to the Spider-Man trilogy. In doing so, all of a sudden Peter Parker has to face the moral decision of whether or not it’s right to essentially be a vigilante and kill a person because of his crime. As we know, Spider-Man captures criminals and hands them over to the police. He doesn’t seek out to kill them.
Venom barely gets any screen time at all. Here you have a fantastic villain with powers nearly identical to Spider-Man, and they barely show him in the movie. When they do it’s pretty much only in the end during the main battle with Spider-Man and Harry Osborn. Why did they even bother to throw Venom into the movie? He should have had solid screen time throughout the entire movie, not just in the ending.
Eddie Brock’s character is fairly interesting, but we really don’t see enough of him in the movie. All we really know is that he’ll brown-nose and cheat his way into a company. Supposedly he dated Gwen Stacy, but that’s merely mentioned just during a small scene. It would have helped if we saw Eddie Brock in the background as a secondary character during the previous Spider-Man movies, working for other newspaper companies and photographing Spider-Man. But instead this great nemesis for Peter Parker is just thrown into this third movie in the franchise.
The same is true for Gwen Stacy. We should have been seeing her in at least one of the previous Spider-Man movies. But we didn’t. Again, you have a great character and we only see small pieces of her despite her having a big impact on Peter Parker.
One of the better characters this time around is Harry Osborn. Unlike his minor roles in the first two movies, his character really shines in Spider-Man 3. Here we see him seeking revenge and actually fighting Peter Parker in the beginning. Then we see a lighter and friendlier side when he’s dating Mary Jane after he has amnesia. After that he again turns evil and gets to battle Parker a second time (that was a pretty cool fight, BTW), only to have him realize the errors of his past and become Parker’s ally for the final battle. At the end, Harry sacrifices himself to save the life of his best friend. The only mystery to Harry’s character is how he learned to fly and fight so quickly between Spider-Man 2 and 3.
Peter Parker’s character is also fairly interesting in this third movie. While I didn’t really care for his badass attitude after becoming a victim of the black alien, it did make the movie a little more interesting. A problem though was that apparently nobody bothered to question his new looks or attitude until after he accidentally struck Mary Jane after fighting the workers in the jazz club. I may have missed it, but I didn’t catch Mary Jane questioning him about his all-black Spider-Man suit either. At least the news reporters caught the difference when talking about the new villain during the hostage scene.
This time around Mary Jane gets to sing a couple of times. You may even think of this as a musical version of Spider-Man from her songs. But that’s just a small part of her screen time. Mary Jane’s character is great like during the previous two Spider-Man movies. Here in part three her character struggles from the critics of her Broadway performance to her floundering relationship with Peter Parker. It gets interesting when she hooks up with Harry Osborn again.
And how about the final fight with Peter and Harry battling Venom and Sandman?
The match-up itself sounds pretty cool when it’s done correctly. However, there were a few odd things about the overall battle.
For starters, did anybody think it was weird the way that the crowd of people stood so close to the battle? Here you have two villains fighting the heroes, and a bunch of people and police officers stood like half a block away from the action. Ummm, yeah.
The fight also involved Sandman being as large as a mountain. I didn’t catch it if it was explained why he was so large during this fight versus his other fights in the movie. If he could be that big, then why didn’t he just destroy every bank in the city to get money for his wife and son?
The main fight had a news helicopter flying around and covering the action. Couldn’t a police or military chopper help fight against a villain the size of a mountain? Harry’s pumpkin bombs seemed to be pretty effective against Sandman. Couldn’t a military chopper (or some ground troops for that matter) fire a couple of small rockets against the villain? Why didn’t any forces try to help Spider-Man when he was getting pounded by Sandman? The reporters just stood around and talked about it, like, “Oh well. There goes that hero.” So much for a city trying to help the hero that it supposedly loved so much.
Spider-Man 3 could have been a great movie and final chapter in an already outstanding trilogy.
But it’s not.
The movie has many great Spider-Man elements in it, but as a movie it’s just not that great. Yes, Spider-Man 3 does add more to the overall story in this telling of Spider-Man. But this movie could have also been significantly better in many aspects. It’s like the producers just threw together a bunch of Spider-Man stuff and called it complete.
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – movie trailer
Sadly, Spider-Man 3 could have been a significantly better movie. Hopefully the reboot of the series will be better in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). (UPDATE – It’s better!)
Mary Jane Watson – “Who are you?”
Peter Parker – “I don’t know.”