Spider-Man 3

Post by **ShyViolet** » May 14th, 2007, 2:17 am

I did Josh!!

I've heard that...that Venom "proper" only comes into the picture for the final fight.

Post by **ShyViolet** » May 14th, 2007, 5:36 am

Re: Elfman's original score for Spidey 2 before Raimi butchered it.

Never mind, just found it.

I'm going to have to check the "original" again to spot major differences, because I couldn't really mark out anything groundbreaking.

It's great score, of course, but one does have to say that it sounds a lot like the train sequence in Mission: Impossible that Danny also scored. And at the end of the day, an action cue is an action cue is an action cue.

There has to be much more to their splitting than just the composer not getting his way on a sequence like this. And sometimes, it's right for the director to pull back the music and let the sound speak for itself.

Like I said, I need to check this out against what was released, but whichever version had been used wouldn't have ended up hurting the film.

Ben, the entire film, edited with Elfman's intended cues, is all on YT.

It's quite different, and IMHO, much stronger.

Deeper, and yet more like a fantasy super-hero film and not "Days of Our Lives Starring Peter Parker."

Just my opinion tho.

Post by **Daniel** » May 14th, 2007, 6:06 am

Glad you got to see it, Vi!

Post by **Ben** » May 14th, 2007, 6:42 am

Well..that's it. Vi has gone mad. See it again and note how it doesn't all "come together".

Post by **ShyViolet** » May 14th, 2007, 6:49 am

Two things I'd change:

But I do agree Ben:

Post by **Ben** » May 14th, 2007, 7:10 am

Hormones...

Post by **ShyViolet** » May 14th, 2007, 5:47 pm

Glad you got to see it, Vi! Smile

Thanks, Dan.

Post by **ShyViolet** » May 14th, 2007, 6:09 pm

Although I don't agree with ALL of this review (Edge.com) I thought it had some interesting points.

*SOME SPOILERS*

Spider-Man 3
Rated PG-13 » Grade: C
by David Foucher
EDGE Publisher
Thursday May 3, 2007

Every once in a while, Hollywood delivers a picture that offers more entertainment value to the critic than it does to its intended audience. "Spiderman 3" is just that sort of movie; it will, with absolute certainty, deliver at the box office, delighting Spidey fans with its expected blend of action sequences, CGI special effects, and (count ’em) three villains to track. But this movie won’t win new fans to the franchise, largely due to the fact that its flaws overshadow the fun.

Here they are, in order of magnitude: Dunst sings, Maguire stagnates, the script sags, the pace stalls, and an alarming percentage of the plot centers around goo from outer space. It’s a critic’s dream.

At the top of the film, New York City is riding high on Spidermania (art imitating life) thanks to the masked hero’s (Tobey Maguire) contribution to the reduction in crime. His contribution to his relationship with his girlfriend (Kirsten Dunst), however, is less impressive - her burgeoning Broadway career has been ripped by critics (I agree with them), she’s depressed, and Spiderboy is far more interested in good press than empathizing with her. In her frustration, she turns to bad-boy Harry Osborn (James Franco), whose early confrontation with Spiderman results in a temporary bout of amnesia. Meanwhile, two new menaces have risen to challenge the city: a hardened criminal with a moral center named Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) has escaped, fallen into an electromagnetic sandstorm, been genetically altered, and has opted to take his anger over life’s imbalances out on innocent civilians... and the aforementioned goo splats down on Earth, gloms onto Spidey, and turns his outfit, his soul, his attitude, his taste in clothes, his dancing skills, and his brain to black mush. Can Spidey free himself from the goo, fight the Goblin, survive the Sandstorm, and keep Mary Jane from falling into a blubbering heap of self-pity?

I found myself not caring; and I was a big fan of the first two "Spiderman" films. The source of the problems (if not the most overt offense) is Sam and Ivan Raimi’s script. Gone are the character complexities that so effectively drove the first two films - especially the second; here, Peter Parker appears to be the same innocent, lackluster sop he was before coming into his superpowers, his evolution through "Spiderman 2" nowhere in evidence. And the Mary Jane we’ve come to know would never let a complete stranger’s opinion send her into a blubber, much less cause her to careen from one man to the next like a spineless waif. In short, the conversion from comic book to nuanced, adult characters has been reversed in the course of one film.

To make matters worse, the script relies on plot speed and special effects to cover its own laziness. We’re not even granted an attempt to explain the transformation of Sandman. Harry’s amnesia is nothing more than a conspicuous convenience for the sake of a plot contortion. And in the apparent interest of evading long-form exposition and new plot invention, the scriptwriters rewrote a plot point from the first movie a second time: yawn.

Dunst works hard at keeping Mary Jane credible, and her performance at times lends the film a much-needed realism; but the character suffers mightily from a weakening spine nonetheless, and - put bluntly - Dunst cannot sing well. I’ll extend kudos as well to Thomas Haden Church, who manages to keep Sandman likable throughout, and Topher Grace, who enters the Spidey fray from the fringe but adopts a more central - and enjoyable - role as the film climaxes. Rosemary Harris continues her heartfelt portrayal Aunt May, providing in her perfunctory way a superior example of acting to the other thespians in the picture. And, as always, J.K. Simmons steals every scene in which he appears as the rough-hewn publisher of the Daily Bugle.

But Tobey Maguire in the titular role is betraying a lack of professional progression. He’s nearly unwatchable as Peter Parker, his mood swings - even given their plot-related causes - unpalatable and unnecessarily extreme, his performance centered around goofball expressions that worked in the first film, but are now undermining our likeability of the hero. The character’s ability to explore his dark side - clearly the film’s marketing beacon, given its dependence on tired hero and outer space antics - is severely hampered by Maguire’s inability to bring a believable level of cognitive brooding to the man beneath the suit.

On technical merits, the picture shines - and herein lies its thinly-disguised pleasure center. Kids and adults alike will gawk at the CGI, the action sequences, and Sam Raimi’s inventive control of the camera. But the picture drags through its second act, limited largely by its writing deficiencies, and a level of exhaustion sets in by the time the film spools out its 139 minute length. The movie’s lowest point arrives midway through the ending battle sequence when a ground reporter actually utters, "Oh, the brutality!" as she watches the baddies pound on Spiderman.

The result is a picture more inadvertently comedic than comic. I’m bound to grudgingly predict that a significant percentage of those who flock to the theatres this weekend to watch Spiderman swing in the Summer 2007 movie season will chatter about how great the movie was. The terminology is wrong: it’s not great. It’s just big.

But I still really like the movie.

Post by **ShyViolet** » May 14th, 2007, 9:03 pm

Also:

Post by **Ben** » May 15th, 2007, 6:54 am

So, Vi, with these two recent posts...are you starting to see Spidey-Sense now that the good-feeling Venom effect has worn off...?

Post by **ShyViolet** » May 15th, 2007, 8:24 am

No comment!

Post by **Ben** » May 15th, 2007, 10:13 am

Me thinks so...

Your silence says it all

Post by **ShyViolet** » June 4th, 2007, 2:19 am

Awesome (and really entertaining

) Spidey review by the great Owen G:

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

B-
By Owen Gleiberman

Call him a square, or maybe a guy who has run out of new tricks, but no one could rightly label the hero of Spider-Man 3 a slacker. For 2 hours and 19 minutes, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), in the guise of his web-spurting alter ego, does fierce battle with a dissolving molecular-mutant shape-shifter called Sandman, who might have risen from the digital desert of a Mummy sequel. He also confronts Venom, a reptile-headed prancer of an alien, as well as Harry Osborn (James Franco), his old comrade/nemesis, who's all too eager to retrofit the Green Goblin mask and flying skateboard of his late father. On the home front, Peter must deal with a girlfriend, the lovely Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), who feels frozen out by him, not to mention the biggest baddie of all: the hidden demon that lurks inside. All in all, that's a heavy burden to pile on Tobey Maguire's star-child gawk and perpetually curled baby lips. It's also a lot to ask of moviegoers, who in this jumbly, sometimes fun, sometimes dispirited sprawl of a sequel end up getting more bang for their buck...and also less.

Spider-Man 3 has terrific moments, but after the danger and majesty and romantic brio of Spider-Man 2, those adrenalized rooftop ballets feel, more than ever, like sequences: hermetic action miracles cooked up in the effects lab, with a story patched around them. Sam Raimi, directing his third Spidey adventure (the script is by Raimi, his brother Ivan, and Alvin Sargent), tosses together the rivalries, criminals, and amorous mishaps like salad, and he contrives a way to make Spider-Man into a figure of ''alienated'' vengeance without ever risking the tiniest sliver of audience market share.

In Spider-Man 3, an asteroid crashes, just as in the old '50s sci-fi movies, and out of the fiery rock emerges a sticky, shiny black tangle — beware! It's the crawling audiotape! — that, for no discernible reason, heads straight for Peter, infesting his cruddy apartment like fleas waiting for a dog. The alien stickum is searching for a host, and when it finds one, it brings out the host's latent dark side.

His suit now black as a tire, Spidey, possessed, leaps over rooftops, pursuing a foe to what looks like a grisly demise. This time, he has a private stake in the square-off: Sandman, before emerging, Hulk-like, from a grand atomic snafu, was a desperate criminal named Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), who may have been responsible for the murder of Peter's uncle. The movie tells us, after the fact, that Spidey was doing his best to kill Sandman, yet the vengeful act in question looks closer to an accident, so the distinction between the ''good'' and ''bad'' Spider-Man is never more than cosmetic. It boils down to how abstractly demonic he looks in that shineless black suit.

Peter, by contrast, wears the dark side on his sleeve, if not his designer lapels. He's exorcising a more profound demon: the curse of nerdishness, which makes Maguire play every scene with the same dorky strangled whine and am I just nice or trying to get you to join a cult? good-guy stare. There's got to be an escape from that Tobey daze, and as the crawling audiotape from space takes over, Peter lets loose, and Maguire lets his hair down — or, at least, lets a shock of it fall onto his forehead. It does him good. As he saunters down the sidewalk in a black suit, doing snappy Rat Pack things with his fingers, Maguire seems to be enjoying himself, even if it isn't clear whether the girls are giggling at him because Peter is suddenly sexy or because he seems to have lost his mind. When he wanders into a jazz bar, where M.J., now estranged from him, is singing a set, he looks tough, talks tough, and finally takes over the floor of the club. At last, we see the secret that lies in Spider-Man's heart: It's Peter Parker's desire to dance as if he were in a revival of Cabaret.

Okay, I kid, but it's only because Raimi sets up the whole dark-side-of-a-hero business and then treats it like a Jim Carrey joke. Meanwhile, the movie lurches along on quasi-contrivances. You never see why M.J., after being fired from her play, neglects to tell Peter, or why, on a day honoring Spider-Man, he's willing to jab at her jealousy by restaging their famous upside-down kiss with the blond tart Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard). Topher Grace, as Peter's rival photographer, a smarm in frosted Brad Pitt hair, brings the movie a welcome dose of seething energy. And let's not take the effects scenes for granted. A few of them are indelible, like a vertiginous sky-high office disaster that evokes 9/11, or Sandman's tornado-to-giant-fist morphings, or the climax, with its scary plunging taxicabs. Spider-Man 3 is product, but it's a machine that tickles your eyes.
Posted May 01, 2007

Post by **Ben** » June 4th, 2007, 8:19 am

Pretty much the same as everyone else!

My biggest problem was the whole sales tactic of making it look like this was going to be a big battle between Spidey and...himself, in the darker role.

What we got was Parker acting the fool and 10 minutes of Venom, none of which played up to the posters (which confusingly all did that red/blue Spidey against black Spidey reflection thing that never and couldn't really appear in the actual film anyway).

And Topher Grace (love those Hollywood names!) taking on Spidey's powers...wha?? I suppose it could be claimed that the venom substance absorbed Parker's abilities and was still somewhat attached to him as it transferred from him to Topher, but it's all a stretch.

Nothing in this movie jumped out logically or memorably enough to really drive it all home. It's a magic trick...all smoke and mirrors to make you forget that there's <I>not actually anything to it</I>.

Once again, it seems Vi's intial "OMG!" reaction is boiling down to something more well thought out...

Post by **rebelrex** » June 4th, 2007, 9:13 am

Thanks for posting those two reviews violet, i enjoyed reading them! I saw the movie opening weekend, and i agree that it was quite an entertaining time.

I do definitely see where your coming from tho ben...

Ben wrote:It's a magic trick...all smoke and mirrors to make you forget that there's <I>not actually anything to it</I>.

unfortunately movie-goers these days seem more interested in such "smoke and mirrors" than in actual substance (largest movie opening in history?!?)