Directed by: Sam Raimi
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Bryce Dallas Howard, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace
Rating: PG-13
Like any fancy-pants movie critic, I constantly apply my considerable industry knowledge to the sport of predictions: which movie will be the surprise hit, which will be the surprise bust, the critical darling, and so on. And if I may say so, my success rate is impressive—impressively bad, that is.
My latest prediction: the opening weekend box office for Spider-Man 3 would fall surprisingly short of expectations. I thought the trailer looked dreary and overstuffed. The thing had the faint whiff of Batman and Robin about it: too many villains and too many storylines packed into one frail little $260 million movie. I figured audiences would sniff out the warning signs. Instead, Spider-Man 3 broke every single opening weekend record in the books, proving that my superpowers are as hearty as ever.
Watching the three Spider-Man movies evolve is like watching a very charming snowball roll down a very snowy hill. It gets bigger and more lumbering with each step. Yet director and overall creative leader Sam Raimi keeps managing to thread enough true character and theme into the movie to keep it together. This one is as overstuffed as it looks, but thanks to those characters it manages to stumble across the finish line intact.
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is on top of the world. New York City has embraced Spider-Man like never before. Children everywhere idolize him, and his beloved Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) is a Broadway star. Even his lovely classmate Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) seems to be eyeing him, when she’s not off modeling somewhere. So maybe Mary Jane isn’t the greatest singer ever, and maybe Peter’s former best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco) still wants to kill him, but why accentuate the negative? Things start to fall apart when Peter learns that escaped convict Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) may have been involved in his uncle’s murder. Then brash, aspiring photojournalist Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) tries to squeeze Peter out of his job at the Daily Bugle. And a suddenly distraught Mary Jane seems to be leaning on Harry quite a bit. You know it’s just going to get worse when Marco’s particles are accidentally reconfigured, transforming him into the near-unstoppable Sandman. And that’s not even taking into account the creepy ooze that leaks out of an asteroid and makes everyone it touches evil.
Doesn’t that sound like too much? The triangle of Peter, Mary Jane, and Harry is compelling enough stuff—and still the most successful portion of the movie. Sure, you have to add a new villain to satisfy the marketing guys, but does Sandman really need a sick daughter? It kind of takes the fun out watching Spider-Man pummel him. Things really go awry with the appearance of this evil ooze. It turns Peter bad just long enough to mess up everything in his life, but it takes the place of real character arcs. We’re forced to focus on what has been one of the films’ weakest traits: too often characters go through major emotional transformations internally—or worse in the case of Harry, who hears the voice of his dead father.
For all the noise and spectacle, it’s the amount of internal conflict raging through this movie that keeps it from really taking off. The first two films were so joyous and big-hearted that they kept us going through their clunky moments. This time Raimi and company are borrowing on our accrued affection to help them through. And as I opined about the first two films, the action is pretty weak. Somebody once helped me understand why so much computer-generated action frustrates me. He pointed out that when the imaginary CG camera does something a real camera can’t do, it pulls us out of the moment. That’s certainly why I tune out during the web-slinging camera-flinging. There are specific moments of creative carnage: it’s fun to watch Spidey shove Sandman’s face against a speeding subway car. But Raimi commits another unforgivable act by allowing Spider-Man to be physically pummeled beyond all comprehensible endurance. Spider-Man gets hit by a moving car, thrown out of another onto the street, and knocked through two layers of plate glass without getting a scratch. I don’t know the comic books well, but since when did the fallible Spider-Man turn into Superman?
The consistent heartbeat of the Spider-Man franchise has been Tobey Maguire. And once again the oddly incongruous meeting of Maguire the dedicated actor and Spider-Man the massive franchise forms a beautiful union. Maguire refuses to play heroic. In fact his only off-key moments are when he tries to spout heroic one-liners. When everything else is stripped away, it’s Maguire who makes it all work.
Kirsten Dunst plays May Jane with her usual honest commitment. This time around, Mary Jane has a really rough go of it, and Dunst loses much of her sparkle. James Franco, meanwhile, has been rejuvenated. Harry’s story takes a surprisingly fun turn, allowing Franco to finally relax into his role on the third try. Thomas Haden Church does a fine job with his decidedly somber character, and Topher Grace shows some progress in his attempt to transform from unctuous TV star (That ’70s Show) to honest movie star. Bryce Dallas Howard (The Village) looks as if she’s illuminated internally, and does a nice enough job with her undernourished role. Elizabeth Banks (Invincible), who has been sitting gamely in the background throughout the franchise, is a lot of fun in her brief moments as Miss Brant.
In fashioning Spider-Man 2, Raimi and his small army of writers worked and worked until they found the right story. This time around, Raimi’s team made some thoughtful choices, but they weren’t able to find the story. Where this one ends up is defensible; it’s just not terribly satisfying. The Spider-Man franchise will probably live on (record-breaking weekends will do that), but it most likely will pull off the rarest of franchise feats: the second in the series will be far and away the best. Spider-Man 3 really does have a lot going for it in spite of it all. There’s a fun sequence in the middle when Peter goes beatnik, and plenty of sly details only Sam Raimi can supply. But in a franchise that has raised the bar quite high, Spider-Man 3 can only be considered a letdown.
Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, California, and works for the Cartoon Network. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard residents for many years.