Long, but entertaining: Spider-Man 3

Frankly, I prefer Batman without Robin at all and as dark and brutal as possible. That's what Batman is.

I understand your point, but the Spider-Man movies have been incredibly successful doing exactly what you have a problem with -- staying true to the character. Now the part about him walking down the street being an ass, that was over-the-top, but funny as hell.

To me, it is the mix of the action sequences and the humanity of the characters that makes these movies work. My wife walked into this with me grumbling about how long it was going to be and expecting to suffer through another one of her husband's movies. She walked out talking about how good it was.

If she and I actually agree on an action movie and it isn't just her staring admiringly at Hugh Jackman in X-Men leather outfits, that makes me think it was a pretty damn good movie because we look for such different things.

As far as action, I thought this was the best of the three so far. I do wish they had gotten across better that Venom is invisible to Spider-Man's spider sense. That's how it was in the comics and it sure looked that way in the movie, but it wasn't made clear.

 

Staying true to which character, though? The comics Spidey or the one they have constructed for the three movies? Do you think these movies are faithful to the comic books?

By the way, the pointy-faced Dunst doesn't move me.

 

Actually, I thought the first two Spideys actually WERE pretty true to the comics.

 

Can't remember who said it, but one critic wrote that he thought Tobey Maguire acted in way that indicated he was trying to kill the franchise.
The Soup have a montage of various S-3 actors on their promotional junkets and they all acted like they didn't want to mess with S-4. Of course, Joel McHale was hoping to reprise his role as bank manager in 3, but didn't. He's all for 4, as long as he is in it.

 

Just saw it today. The butler confession was pure cheeseball deux ex machina, and when Peter turned dark, was it necessary for his hairstyle to all of a sudden turn emo? And Mary Jane's song at the end was the ultimate in hammer-on-the-noggin symbolism. I didn't see the first two, but it was about what I expected for the third installation of a franchise: safe set pieces.

 

Actually, yes, the focus on the emotions and humanity of Peter Parker is very true to the comics. Check out any interview with Stan Lee, who helped create Spider-Man along with most of the other important Marvel characters. That was what he felt set them apart, the man behind the mask. These movies have been very true to the comics.

Dooley, I had problems with some of that, too. Though the hair did kinda make sense. Peter Parker is a dork. What happens when a dork suddenly gets an ego the size of as mall continent? He starts trying to show everyone how cool he is, but fucks it all up because he still isn't cool at all. The hair fit into that. It was supposed to look silly.

The thing with the butler made no sense. Why wouldn't he have told Harry all that before? Though the bigger problem was the meteor landing so conveniently close to where Peter was? Why not take another two minutes to have it cause a fire or something and the stuff ends up on his boot while he saves somebody?

And still...I really enjoyed the film.

 

I guess my question was, did he go to the hairstylist during his dark period, or did the hair just automatically do that?

 

Probably one of the biggest disappointments I've seen at a theater in a long time. I'm just counting the days now until 28 Weeks Later.

 

Oh, I agree that you didn't just have to suspend your disbelief for this one...you had to pretty much shoot it to death...

But it does seem to be working. Record $59 million opening day and I heard it was $148 million for the weekend.

 

If this movie wasn't the third of a great franchise, everyone on here would have loved it. But let's face it, we all went into this one with very high expectations.
Was this one as good as the first two? No.
But easily much better than most of the slop that's going to be shoved down our throats this summer.

 

I was disappointed with this one...I kind of went in expecting to be disappointed, however. The first two were probably the two best comic book movies ever. It seemed like they crammed in too much stuff, with three villians. Should have saved Venom for Spider-Man 4.....

 

Talk about damning with faint praise.