While I Wasn't Blogging: Spider-Man 3
Oh, good lord.
I was totally excited for this. Sure, I knew it would be overstuffed in that latter Batman-sequel kind of way. Too many villains, too many love interests, too many embossed nipples, too little fun. But I figured, hey, at least the basic things that make Spider-Man cool as a character would still be honored. After all, even in Superman IV: The Quest For A Decent Green Screen, Superman is still Superman...right?
Where to begin...where to begin...
Unnecessary Musical Moment #1: Let's see...Mary Jane is ultimately deemed too weak to keep her Broadway role. But I'm glad we get to see her terrible number in its entirely anyway. Thanks, Sam Raimi. More like Sam Lame-i. Am I right, people? Anyone? No one. K.
Then we get to see "New Goblin" (ick.) Harry chase Peter through the crudely computer animated streets of New Mac City. I remember reading an EW article where Raimi said he was running out of time to complete all of the film's effects for its opening. Something tells me it was this scene he was worried about...and rightfully so. There were more convincing CGI environments in Tron. I'm sorry, but no other filmmaker has ever made something so expensive look so cheap. Look at the silly New Yorker montage sequences in both Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. I might as well be watching Peter and Mary Jane: The New Adventures of Spider-Man on ABC Family. You can Evil Dead me all you want, but know what I have to say about that? Darkman. Check and mate.
After the Matrix Revolutions Lite sequence, though, we get a fairly cool movie for a little while. Sandman's origin? Kinda cool, if a little ridiculous and convenient. I mean, that rebirth scene is kind of beautiful. Spider-Man's midtown skyscraper rescue? Right up there with any action sequences in its predecessors (well, maybe not as cool as the runaway train scene). Bryce Dallas Howard is always nice to see, even if her role is criminally underwritten, and Topher Grace is genuinely funny and engaging as Eddie Brock. Maybe this movie won't be such a disaster after all...
...and then the symbiote stuff begins.
Unnecessary Musical Moment #2: Really? We couldn't find anywhere in the $258 million budget to scare up the rights to the real "Stayin' Alive"? We had to write an infringement-skirting approximation of it, a la the "Sharry Bobbins" episode of The Simpsons? Of course, the whole thing might have been bearable if not for the from Parker-to-Petrelli hairstyle, heinous dance moves, and the constant confusion about whether these lady passers-by are supposed to think Emo-Pete is hot or not. But still, probably not.
God, that hair. Dear lord, that eyeliner. As if Tobey Maguire needed an excuse to look even more like Sara Gilbert. And could we possibly see him with his mask off more? It's a very smart idea to skulk unmasked on Manhattan's rooftops. A quiet hamlet like that surely has very little in the way of surveillance cameras or simply eyewitnesses from neighboring buildings. Yep, every frame dedicated to Ms. Maguire's baggy eyes and weak chin are a triumph both of the concept of a secret identity and of filmmaking in general.
Unnecessary Musical Moment #3: Y'know, if my movie's pushing three hours long, with more characters than the Japanese alphabet and more villains than Congress, the first thing I think is, "Do you know what else this needs? An omelette-making scene underscored by 'The Twist'." Yep. This is worth everyone's time, because it focuses on tertiary characters, all while not moving the plot forward! Score. Other dance bits left on the cutting room floor: Flint Marko and Eddie Brock building an igloo to "The Monster Mash", J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson dyeing Easter Eggs to "Teddy Bear Picnic", and Gwen Stacy and Aunt May sewing each other's pussies shut to the Ferngully 2 soundtrack.
"Hey, why don't we cast Bill Paxton's dad as a bit part in Spider-Man? Sure, he can't act, but he doesn't have much to do, and anyway, he can't be as bad as his son."
"John Paxton back for Spider-Man 2? Yeah, why not?"
"Hey, for this third one, why don't we beef up Bernard's part more, even though there's no way Paxton can do this justice? Maybe I can come up with a completely pointless scene for him and James Franco that manages to be both really long and utterly irrelevant?"
HARRY: Bernard, I'm having a guest over.
BERNARD: A guest, sir?
HARRY: Yes, a guest. Maybe you can get us some food, Bernard?
BERNARD: Food, sir?
HARRY: Yes, food.
BERNARD: Food...
HARRY: Yeah, Bernard. Food.
BERNARD: Is that the stuff you chew and it makes you grow?
HARRY: Yes. Yes it is. See what you can whip up.
BERNARD: Whip, sir?
[Editor's Note: loving this Harry/Bernard scene, but can we make it three or four pages longer? Also, if we can have Bernard make a revelation to Harry at the end that would have been helpful to hear before his face was blown up by Emo-Pete? Great!]
While we're at it, completely invalidating Spider-Man's origin by changing the identity of the gunman who killed Uncle Ben sounds like such a fantastic idea on paper, but for some strange reason, doesn't play in the film at all. Who knew?
Unnecessary Musical Moment #4: Wow, the symbiote has made Peter so reckless and evil. Need proof? Look at him swing-dance! Cue the moment I throw my hands up at the screen in utter disbelief. Am I watching Spider-Man 3 or The Mask? And if that wasn't bad enough, he then pushes and/or hits Mary Jane to the floor. Jesus Christ. Superman III was a dud, but at least he never hits a woman.
Ah, well. Maybe the movie can redeem itself in the big finale. Mary Jane in danger, Venom and Sandman holding all of New York hostage, an astoundingly expected turnaround from New Goblin...this could be pretty bad-ass. Or it could end with Spider-Man, unmasked as always, doing everything shy of a reacharound with his new best friend, the similarly weepy Sandman. "I did it for my daughter." Stealing money to afford medication, I can understand. But you really teamed up with Venom and held Mary Jane captive to lure Spider-Man in order to kill him for your daughter? How does that work, exactly? She must be one blood-thirsty Make-A-Wisher.
Unnecessary Musical Moment #5 (can you believe it? 5!): Spider-Man movies are supposed to end with him swinging through the city in increasingly-sophisticated CGI glory. Didn't you know that? They're not supposed to end with a fauxmotional reunion scene with a girl who can't sing. Of course, only a third of the audience I saw the movie with stuck around for it. Most of them checked out after Peter's teary "I forgive you" to Sandman. Die-hard Spider-Man fans, clad in various webbed merchandise, cursed the screen and stormed away.
I waited until the closing credits to do the same. And as I headed back home on the subway, which, unlike in the film, doesn't extend so far underground as to be in the seventh sphere of hell, I thought about a hypothetical Spider-Man 4, featuring Electro, The Scorpion, six versions of Hobgoblin, Carnage, and Geldhof, flanked by love interests Mary Jane, Gwen, Felicia Hardy, Jessica Drew, and a hollowed-out cantaloupe, and I started to get excited for opening day.
Oh, good lord.
I was totally excited for this. Sure, I knew it would be overstuffed in that latter Batman-sequel kind of way. Too many villains, too many love interests, too many embossed nipples, too little fun. But I figured, hey, at least the basic things that make Spider-Man cool as a character would still be honored. After all, even in Superman IV: The Quest For A Decent Green Screen, Superman is still Superman...right?
Where to begin...where to begin...
Unnecessary Musical Moment #1: Let's see...Mary Jane is ultimately deemed too weak to keep her Broadway role. But I'm glad we get to see her terrible number in its entirely anyway. Thanks, Sam Raimi. More like Sam Lame-i. Am I right, people? Anyone? No one. K.
Then we get to see "New Goblin" (ick.) Harry chase Peter through the crudely computer animated streets of New Mac City. I remember reading an EW article where Raimi said he was running out of time to complete all of the film's effects for its opening. Something tells me it was this scene he was worried about...and rightfully so. There were more convincing CGI environments in Tron. I'm sorry, but no other filmmaker has ever made something so expensive look so cheap. Look at the silly New Yorker montage sequences in both Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. I might as well be watching Peter and Mary Jane: The New Adventures of Spider-Man on ABC Family. You can Evil Dead me all you want, but know what I have to say about that? Darkman. Check and mate.
After the Matrix Revolutions Lite sequence, though, we get a fairly cool movie for a little while. Sandman's origin? Kinda cool, if a little ridiculous and convenient. I mean, that rebirth scene is kind of beautiful. Spider-Man's midtown skyscraper rescue? Right up there with any action sequences in its predecessors (well, maybe not as cool as the runaway train scene). Bryce Dallas Howard is always nice to see, even if her role is criminally underwritten, and Topher Grace is genuinely funny and engaging as Eddie Brock. Maybe this movie won't be such a disaster after all...
...and then the symbiote stuff begins.
Unnecessary Musical Moment #2: Really? We couldn't find anywhere in the $258 million budget to scare up the rights to the real "Stayin' Alive"? We had to write an infringement-skirting approximation of it, a la the "Sharry Bobbins" episode of The Simpsons? Of course, the whole thing might have been bearable if not for the from Parker-to-Petrelli hairstyle, heinous dance moves, and the constant confusion about whether these lady passers-by are supposed to think Emo-Pete is hot or not. But still, probably not.
God, that hair. Dear lord, that eyeliner. As if Tobey Maguire needed an excuse to look even more like Sara Gilbert. And could we possibly see him with his mask off more? It's a very smart idea to skulk unmasked on Manhattan's rooftops. A quiet hamlet like that surely has very little in the way of surveillance cameras or simply eyewitnesses from neighboring buildings. Yep, every frame dedicated to Ms. Maguire's baggy eyes and weak chin are a triumph both of the concept of a secret identity and of filmmaking in general.
Unnecessary Musical Moment #3: Y'know, if my movie's pushing three hours long, with more characters than the Japanese alphabet and more villains than Congress, the first thing I think is, "Do you know what else this needs? An omelette-making scene underscored by 'The Twist'." Yep. This is worth everyone's time, because it focuses on tertiary characters, all while not moving the plot forward! Score. Other dance bits left on the cutting room floor: Flint Marko and Eddie Brock building an igloo to "The Monster Mash", J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson dyeing Easter Eggs to "Teddy Bear Picnic", and Gwen Stacy and Aunt May sewing each other's pussies shut to the Ferngully 2 soundtrack.
"Hey, why don't we cast Bill Paxton's dad as a bit part in Spider-Man? Sure, he can't act, but he doesn't have much to do, and anyway, he can't be as bad as his son."
"John Paxton back for Spider-Man 2? Yeah, why not?"
"Hey, for this third one, why don't we beef up Bernard's part more, even though there's no way Paxton can do this justice? Maybe I can come up with a completely pointless scene for him and James Franco that manages to be both really long and utterly irrelevant?"
HARRY: Bernard, I'm having a guest over.
BERNARD: A guest, sir?
HARRY: Yes, a guest. Maybe you can get us some food, Bernard?
BERNARD: Food, sir?
HARRY: Yes, food.
BERNARD: Food...
HARRY: Yeah, Bernard. Food.
BERNARD: Is that the stuff you chew and it makes you grow?
HARRY: Yes. Yes it is. See what you can whip up.
BERNARD: Whip, sir?
[Editor's Note: loving this Harry/Bernard scene, but can we make it three or four pages longer? Also, if we can have Bernard make a revelation to Harry at the end that would have been helpful to hear before his face was blown up by Emo-Pete? Great!]
While we're at it, completely invalidating Spider-Man's origin by changing the identity of the gunman who killed Uncle Ben sounds like such a fantastic idea on paper, but for some strange reason, doesn't play in the film at all. Who knew?
Unnecessary Musical Moment #4: Wow, the symbiote has made Peter so reckless and evil. Need proof? Look at him swing-dance! Cue the moment I throw my hands up at the screen in utter disbelief. Am I watching Spider-Man 3 or The Mask? And if that wasn't bad enough, he then pushes and/or hits Mary Jane to the floor. Jesus Christ. Superman III was a dud, but at least he never hits a woman.
Ah, well. Maybe the movie can redeem itself in the big finale. Mary Jane in danger, Venom and Sandman holding all of New York hostage, an astoundingly expected turnaround from New Goblin...this could be pretty bad-ass. Or it could end with Spider-Man, unmasked as always, doing everything shy of a reacharound with his new best friend, the similarly weepy Sandman. "I did it for my daughter." Stealing money to afford medication, I can understand. But you really teamed up with Venom and held Mary Jane captive to lure Spider-Man in order to kill him for your daughter? How does that work, exactly? She must be one blood-thirsty Make-A-Wisher.
Unnecessary Musical Moment #5 (can you believe it? 5!): Spider-Man movies are supposed to end with him swinging through the city in increasingly-sophisticated CGI glory. Didn't you know that? They're not supposed to end with a fauxmotional reunion scene with a girl who can't sing. Of course, only a third of the audience I saw the movie with stuck around for it. Most of them checked out after Peter's teary "I forgive you" to Sandman. Die-hard Spider-Man fans, clad in various webbed merchandise, cursed the screen and stormed away.
I waited until the closing credits to do the same. And as I headed back home on the subway, which, unlike in the film, doesn't extend so far underground as to be in the seventh sphere of hell, I thought about a hypothetical Spider-Man 4, featuring Electro, The Scorpion, six versions of Hobgoblin, Carnage, and Geldhof, flanked by love interests Mary Jane, Gwen, Felicia Hardy, Jessica Drew, and a hollowed-out cantaloupe, and I started to get excited for opening day.
posted by Michael at 10:42 AM
1 Comments:
I totally agree. being a big spider-man film, I was really really looking forward to film 3. The trailer was good, and the poster artwork was nicely done, all that was left was to see the film... and what a disappointment. its wasnt bad as such, just padded out with a little too much cack. BTW what happened to Unnecessary Musical Moment #3?
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