Film Review: Spider-Man 3 (2007)

All those hype and quite for naught. Or probably that i had so much expectation that after seeing the final result, i was agree with Tobey Maguire's initial response after attending the official screening in Tokyo several weeks ago that Spider-Man 3 was in fact a merely so-so. However, i would like to pull this one a little further that i thought even with Venom's marvelous presence on this third instalment of the franchise, this one fell a rather far behind the other two.

Spider-Man 3, in my view, could clearly separated into three parts. Pre-Venom (the real Venom, the Eddie Brock's Venom), Venom, and after Venom. The Venom part is excellent. The other two were boring.

I never liked Peter Parker or Spider-Man. I never had a real connection with Peter Parker. Sure, he is a rigid, uncertain, and not-so-confident young fella, but with certain gift that he more often than not consider as a curse as well. For some, for many, that made him more human than any other superhero that ever gazes presence on the comic book pages. Quite probably, ironically, that's what made me loses connection to him. However, on the previous two instalment, Tobey Maguire could deliver and believable as Peter Parker / Spider-Man. Something that i don't fell anew in this film.

Continuing his latest adventure, Spider-Man encounters several old nemesis (Goblin Junior, and his-own-uncertain-feeling) and couple new ones (Sandman and Venom). Sadly, these encounters were largely, mostly attributed to coincidences. There's no real threat in these encounters. They're simplified and ultimately, negligible.

The film ran long, two and a half hours, but, even if it had more than sufficient feature-length, i still felt that the film was in a hurried pace, especially in the beginning. There were too many to introduces, too much to tell, and too little time. Thus, there's no real emotion sparked between me and the characters. I felt like flipping through a comic page, scanning the bubbles without really reading it. Ironically, at the after Venom part, the film dragged its way trough the exit with quite a few lame scenes and lame scripts that i kept my eyes rolled up in exasperation.

All in all, i must see the other two instalment before i could verify my comment, but i think it's safe to say that action wise, this film was a ok, story wise, this film felt like one of those 80's comic with all those silly story line and lame dialogue. Oh, and there was this scene when Spider-Man flew before the waving flag that filled the entire screen. I was the only one who laughed out loud in the theater at the scene. And i tell you, that was an instantaneous laugh and that scene really made my opinion firm that this film was nothing but a joke. I really do hope that there wouldn't be number 4. Oh, this franchise has hit a new low.

My Rating: *1/2 / ****, and i'm being generous.