So Rikke and I went to check out Spider-Man 3 tonight, an contrary to what Brian and Morten had to say, it doesn’t suck. In fact, it’s a fun ride. And that’s it. Just like the last two…
Spider-Man is—generally speaking—one of those things you either pick up as a kid, or just never manage to get into. Personally, I fall down on the ‘never’ side. I like Spider-Man, I think he’s an all-round good guy, but I don’t quite see the fascination. Nope siree, I’ll take the (first two) X-Men any day of the week.
Now Brian and Morten both seem to think that the fault is placed squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Raimi… Both of them that is, for writing a sub-par screenplay. But man, those guys wrote, and here it comes, motherfucking Army of Darkness, so you’d best get down on your knees and pay some respect!
But really, the first Spider-Men was kinda fun because it was playful, but other than that? Meh. I mean, who really cares about the Green Goblin? I loves me some Willem Dafoe, but the B-grade of that character puts Hammer Horror to shame! Nonetheless, I was entertained throughout (though its unrealistic earnings always annoyed me; I felt they were undeserved).
And the second? Pretty much a rehash of the first, for all intents and purposes. But again, entertained.
Now I had some trepidation in regards to the handling of a new love interest, a professional competitor, Venom, Sandman, Goblin, the whole MJ crisis and dealing with the ring the black suit.
But you know what; all things considered, they did a pretty damn nice job of serving all those masters and still keeping the film moving at a good pace.
And Morten; the flag? Come on, Spider-Man is only topped in US patriotism by the be-all-end-all boyscout, Superman; and the ‘posing with the flag’ was in both the previous movies. If you want to complain, you have my permission to complain about the horribly long intro or the somewhat lousy digital stunt doubles, but when you go to see American superheroes unfold, you know what to expect.
Now we can argue about the Peter Parker goes loco sequence; that was a bit odd. But ultimately I thought the whole MJ/Parker split-up was well-played and touching.
I don’t even want to start thinking about the amount of pressure Sam Raimi must have been under from Sony Pictures and Marvel. This franchise, epitomized by this one movie, can literally make or break both those companies! It probably cost a fortune, and it is slated to cash in big time! And so it best be a crowd pleaser, or else…
But in the end, Spider-Man is a kids movie, and if I was a kid, I would have loved it. As it stands, I still feel a disconnect from being fifteen to twenty years late to the game, and so I was merely entertained for a few hours.
But being entertained for a few hours in front of the silver screen is itself something of a feat it seems, and so Spider-Man gets a pat on the back and a ‘do it for the kids’ to go with my popcorn.
“Come on, Spider-Man is only topped in US patriotism by the be-all-end-all boyscout, Superman…”
Or maybe Capt. America… :)
Though I think he died in the comics? I haven’t read any in years, but the point still stands.
I thought it was good. Not as good as the first movie – which was great – but still a movie that I enjoyed. I would have definitely gone with less story elements. I mean there were like 6 sub plots going on at any time and even though the movie was already long, it still wasn’t long enough to handle all involved characters accordingly. In the end I didn’t feel fully satisfied with any of the sub plots. By the way: I thought the intro was great, as were the CGI scenes with sandman. The scene were he manifests for the first time: probably the best scene in the whole film.
PS: Could you please stop writing “I love me some..” at least once in almost every post. It annoys the hell out of me.
What a relief – a little bit of perspective – most of the reviews have just cut it to shreds
[quote comment=“118446”]“Come on, Spider-Man is only topped in US patriotism by the be-all-end-all boyscout, Superman…”
Or maybe Capt. America… :)
Though I think he died in the comics? I haven’t read any in years, but the point still stands.[/quote]
Haha, but of course! :D
Yeah Freitag, the Sandman scenes were pretty damn well-done, but I was talking mostly about the digital doubles, most of whom seemed to move stiffly… But alright, that entire movie was an action effects shot, so hey…
As or loves me some…. I loves me some writing loves me some!1
Sorry Michael – it still sucks. :)
Yeah you’re right. The effects kind of sucked too sometimes.
No! What I expect is based on the two last Spiderman movies. Not superhero movies in general! That’s why I didn’t expect a blind crowd pleasing kids movie with superheroes crying in the sunset. It’s PG13. It’s not a children’s movie! I don’t need everything spelled out – or placed in my forehead with a hammer.
As for patriotism goes i guess it’s a cultural difference. They love it we (I) hate it.
I don’t really care. Sorry to be an asshole but if Raimi can’t create a good movie under pressure he should find something else to do. But I don’t think it’s because he was under pressure this movie sucked – I think the script sucked. And who wrote it?
Eh … so what? The same guys who wrote Army of Darkness 27 years ago? Army was a great and funny flick – but I still think Spiderman 3 really sucked.
George Lucas wrote A New Hope – that doesn’t make Phantom Menace any better even though we all wish it would.
I would like to love Spiderman 3 – I really would – and I tried. But I can’t fool my self into liking something just because I know who’s behind the camera.
Yeah, I can’t agree with you on most counts about SM3, except where “do it for the kids” is good enough for a spiderman movie.
The first and second movies took the subject matter seriously whether it was emotional scenes or action. They weren’t just “for the kids”-movies.
This one, on the other hand, obviously cared nothing for the twenty-something-grew-up-loving-spiderman crowd.
If you can’t tell the difference in hokeyness between SM1/2 and SM3, then it must be because they all fall in “yeah yeah sure sure whatever” category to you. That is not at all how I feel.
Funny you should mention X-Men 1/2 vs 3, because I think the downwards shift from 2 to 3 in X-Men is orders of magnitude lower than SM2 to SM3.
I am not saying that I wasn’t entertained (except in the exceptionally long and boring ending), but rather that this was a much worse movie than the preceding ones. If you are going to set the bar at a certain level, then don’t suddenly turn the shit into a limbo competition.
You two guys have an unnatural relationship with Spider-Man, to go and say that Spider-Man 3 ‘sucked’. It’s a comicbook movie, in the truest sense of the word. No other comic book movie is as comic book-like as Spider-Man… I mean, have you read the comic? It’s absolutely ridiculous 95% of the time!
So you didn’t like it, that’s fine, but saying that it ‘sucks’ is way out of proportion for a movie about a guy in a suit fighting other guys in other suits. It isn’t exactly art, nor rocket science. There’s a difference between ‘that didn’t live up to my expectations’ and ‘it sucks! run!’ :)
I’m not saying movies about guys in suits beating up other guys in other suits can’t be made awesome. Nor am I discouraging people from enjoying them as such. But SM1 and SM2 are little more than ‘very good’, and if SM3 only manages to be ‘alright’, then too bad; but that doesn’t make it suck!
PS Morten, yeah, strictly speaking, George Lucas did write Star Wars, but he did have help with polish the script (from the Huycks, plus general feedback from amongst others, Coppola, all of which fed heavily into the style and structure of the movie), whereas, to my knowledge, he had no help with Phantom Menace.
And no, I’m not saying ‘because so and so wrote so and so, everything they did was good’ (because if that was true, Soldier should have been a masterpiece; and let’s just say it wasn’t), but if you set up statements like ‘they wrote the script this time around, thus it sucks’, then a little perspective doesn’t hurt :)
Besides, all three movies had different screenwriters, so it’s not like they’re breaking a cycle or anything.
Michael, let’s agree do disagree then and just say I expected something else from Spiderman 3 and didn’t get it. In my disappointment I used the word sucks. I stick by that. Maybe I change my mind later but right now it still sucks IMO.
Amen masta
This review is useless! I went to watch it because of this review and got my hopes up! this movie just sucked. Storyline… Vemon… Dancing.. Singing… EVERTHING went wrong. Learn how to review a movie for crying out loud!! and stop.. .. ah what da hell, i dont want to waste anymore of my time on this crappy movie anymore.
The easiest way to tell it was written by the same guy that did Army of Darkness is this: Bruce Campbell was the most entertaining part of SM3
It was a very disappointing movie, you would have thought they would have moved on from the romance and the background of Peter Parker because the first 2 movies were based on it.
Did I hear a while back that 4 more movies are scheduled?? argh
[quote comment=“119073”]It was a very disappointing movie, you would have thought they would have moved on from the romance and the background of Peter Parker because the first 2 movies were based on it.[/quote]
Indeed!
[quote comment=“119073”]It was a very disappointing movie, you would have thought they would have moved on from the romance and the background of Peter Parker because the first 2 movies were based on it.[/quote]
Yeah, like that “dark side” thing they kept harping on in Star Wars… what a fucking drag.
You got to be kidding me.
MJ is one of the absolutely central characters in Spiderman. The relationship between PP and MJ is one of the biggest themes.
I’ve heard people bitching about aunt may and uncle ben and MJ. Obviously, you people have absolutely no freaking clue about the comics the movies came from.
Gah!
I thought the movie was actually done great. Now the game on the other hand is a near total disaster
http://www.xboxps3gamereviews.com/xbox-360/spiderman-3-xbox-360-version-review/
[quote comment=“118898”]This review is useless! I went to watch it because of this review and got my hopes up! this movie just sucked. Storyline… Vemon… Dancing.. Singing… EVERTHING went wrong. Learn how to review a movie for crying out loud!! and stop.. .. ah what da hell, i dont want to waste anymore of my time on this crappy movie anymore.[/quote]
Haha, another satisfied customer :D
[quote comment=“119238”]Haha, another satisfied customer :D[/quote]
Apparently I am not alone.
It is also apparent from the fact that since my ‘review’ is #1 hit on google for “spiderman 3 sucks”, my visitor numbers have literally tripled in the days following the premiere.
Heh, you’re not helping yourself by pledging yourself to be right because ‘Richard’, who has trouble putting together coherent sentences agrees with you :)
Again, I’m just poking at your assertion of it ‘sucking’, which I think is downright wrong. It’s the equivalent of rating movies on IMDb 1 out of 10 just because it wasn’t BST EVRz!1…
It’s polarizing your own opinion, a disservice to yourself, since you have it in you to have a much more verbose and informed opinion about, in particular, Spider-Man.
And I would much rather read that opinion, than ‘it sucks!1’.
[quote comment=“119248”]Heh, you’re not helping yourself by pledging yourself to be right because ‘Richard’, who has trouble putting together coherent sentences agrees with you :)
[/quote]
Apparently there are a lot of those on the internet.
[quote comment=“119248”]Again, I’m just poking at your assertion of it ‘sucking’, which I think is downright wrong. It’s the equivalent of rating movies on IMDb 1 out of 10 just because it wasn’t BST EVRz!1…[/quote]
Whoever said “sucks” == 1?
I think sucks is a sliding scale, where it depends on the subject material. For example, doing Fantastic Four is much more forgiving than doing Spiderman, because Fantastic Four has always been quite hokey. Ergo, a FF movie with an IMDB rating of 5-6 is still acceptable in my eyes.
But X-Men and Spiderman build upon some of the best comics I have ever read, so I expect the movies to be good as well. So an x-men movie with an imdb score of 5-6 sucks ass, in my eyes.
[quote comment=“119248”]It’s polarizing your own opinion, a disservice to yourself, since you have it in you to have a much more verbose and informed opinion about, in particular, Spider-Man.[/quote]
Not in the least. It’s not that I can’t say anything nice about SM3, but it fell far below the suckage-bar for that particular movie series, and that the sucking is the most prominent feature of that movie. Shockingly, because there are some nice action scenes and such. But it sucks out so loud that it just completely blocks out the good things.
The fact that you can look at a movie where emo-Peter Parker does a little saturday night fever dance routine and ridiculously weak plot development like “oh hi, I’m the butler from nowhere who used to be a CSI detective – let me just turn your blind hatred to love in a single sentence” and the likes, without without thinking is sucks donkey cock is just downright shocking to me.
You can easily get a more verbose opinion from me on why the movie sucks, but it will just be more detailed explanation of all the places this movie went so very, very wrong.
I am just flabbergasted as to how you can not think this movie sucks ass.
I’m afraid I’m going to — in general terms — agree with Brian. I too, think Spiderman 3 is a bad movie. The word “sucks” is up in the air as to how we want to interpret it. I think SM3 does suck, but not nearly as much as say, House of the Dead, Catwoman, Bloodrayne, that whole shebang.
In my review on my site, I gave it 2 out of 6 stars. For the most expensive movie ever made (possibly), 2/6 is a really lousy grade. Hence, I think it sucks. In lieu, House of the Dead would score either 0/6 or -1/6. Catwoman would score 1/6. 2/6 is leaps and bounds better than 0/6 and 1/6, but it’s equally far behind Spiderman 2 which I’d give 5/6.
Sure, kids may enjoy this movie. It certianly has a kids vibe all the way through. The thing is, movies can be made to be thoroughly enjoyable by children and adults alike. Take The Incredibles, or Spiderman 2. I enjoyed them both.
Bottomline: something went wrong with Spiderman 3. It fell short.
My guess is Raimi crumbled under the weight of his own ambitions with this one.
Please Michael, tell me what you thought of the following scenes/things:
1) PP dances down the street, gets new clothes, does John T dance move
2) Butler turns around Harrys hate by telling him “I’ve seen a lot of things in this house… bla bla … wounds were inflicted by your dads own glider”
3) The entire sandman/venom endgame
4) The dancing scene in the Jazz club (The Mask? What are you doing in SM3?)
5) Peter hangs out at the phone and is all “hey, get me some cookies” to the land lords daughter
Just wondering, because those were some of the scenes that really grinded on my nerves, like a musical scene in the Lord of the Rings would have.
Well I by and large agree, it was all a bit ‘huh?!’-like, but I just hadn’t expected a whole lot more.
I had hoped for it, but that’s something else.
But then I never got into Spider-Man as a kid, and I, generally, don’t take Spider-Man seriously. So I can sit down and be spoon-fed whatever colorful glitzy TJU! BANG! SWING! crap they came up with and still be pretty ‘whatever’ about the whole thing.
I can understand that you might be a bit surprised that I would feel that way about a movie like SM3, which isn’t quite up there with the great summer-blockbusters of our time. But the realization that certain kinds of movies generally do fall well below the ‘HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THAT!’ margin, lowers the bar across the the genre. So I go to see these movies wearing my ‘whatever’ t-shirt, which thankfully allows me to enjoy what you find unenjoyable.
All in all I think comic book movies (not graphic novel movies, but comic book movies) take themselves waaaaay too seriously. Superman Returns anyone? Holy saviour-complex Batman! Compare and contrast to Donner’s Superman and the enjoy’o‘meter rises.
And it’s sort of the same with SM3. It just had no idea how to play the wacky, ditsy part up with the epic operatic fight-of-the-century part, and so ended up stuck in the mud somewhere in the middle.
But just as with the Matrix sequels, the parts are greater than their sum, and if you can segregate the good parts from the ‘huh?!’ parts, your money and time ends up having not been entirely wasted.
Now, get me started on actual films, and you will find my opinions to be considerably less indulgent :)
PS: There are people who think Lord of the Rings sucked, and if you were to write an entry which had the title “Lord of the Rings sucked!” then you’d also see your visitor count rise. Does that mean Lord of the Rings sucked? Or are there just people out there who will agree with just about anything?
[quote comment=“119257”]Please Michael, tell me what you thought of the following scenes/things:
1) PP dances down the street, gets new clothes, does John T dance move
2) Butler turns around Harrys hate by telling him “I’ve seen a lot of things in this house… bla bla … wounds were inflicted by your dads own glider”
3) The entire sandman/venom endgame
4) The dancing scene in the Jazz club (The Mask? What are you doing in SM3?)
5) Peter hangs out at the phone and is all “hey, get me some cookies” to the land lords daughter
Just wondering, because those were some of the scenes that really grinded on my nerves, like a musical scene in the Lord of the Rings would have.[/quote]
YES! Those were such embarrassing scenes! ARGH the pain!
I’d like to add just a few, now that I’m steaming:
- Sooo much slapstick humor! The joke with the bugle editor buying a 100$ cam from a kid — there’s a fucking fight going on: focus!
- The TV reporter scenes — sooo poorly acted! It looked like footage from the Command & Conquer 3 campaign videos (meaning – - – )
[quote comment=“119276”]PS: There are people who think Lord of the Rings sucked, and if you were to write an entry which had the title “Lord of the Rings sucked!” then you’d also see your visitor count rise. Does that mean Lord of the Rings sucked? Or are there just people out there who will agree with just about anything?[/quote]
I agree. It wasn’t meant as an argument for my position, but rather just a curious little fact.
Think the movie was not good, think its was a bit boring, I was spoting all those nice extras in the background, i want to live in Spideman-World…most females are so nice…
Heh, it’s funny you should mention it, it was the first thing I said to Rikke when we left the cinema: “Except for that east bloc cookie chick, the female population of New York is pretty much all supermodels”.
Okay, normally i don’t go online to blast movies, but i will lose my blog virginity on this one. Spiderman 3 took my favorite villian out of any story i have ever read, played, or seen, and turned him into a sissy little girl named Eric Forman. Seriously. Thats like putting Adam West into Darth Vader costume and putting him in Star Wars. Everytime you’d look at him, you’d think of a certain theme song. Thats how i felt about Venom.
As for the rest, the acting was over the top, I believe the writing could have been better (no disrespect to Raimi), mainly the one liners. Oh yes, and don’t go the X-men 3 way and kill off half the main characters(of course, x-men killed off EVERYONE…) I guess what I’m trying to say is… after the quality movies made previously, This one acted like Ghost Rider and made me want to crucify myself through the eyes. I mean… come on… Eric Forman…
And don’t get me started to his strutting scene. Or emo. Whatever you want to call it.
That movie made me terribly angry. Right from the stupid web love scene in the beginning – no from even before that in the super long 007 wanna be intro. I don’t understand why they gave him emo bangs for “evil” parker or why he was doing that shitty double gun hand thing walking down the street. Or why he was dancing all over the place. Or why there were about 20 crying scenes. Or why the sandman character was about as shitty as the hotel chain. Or why there was a giant american flag. and how long does it take to develop a healed scar like that on the face of goblin jr – and shouldn’t he be dead or did you realize you needed him to finish off the shitty plot line after you killed him off the first time. and who the hell is the butler?
it feels like this movie was written and pushed out because they knew they’d make a shit load of money regardless of how bad it was.
overall I can’t understand why all these people are giving it such a good review. perhaps i’ve become mentally ill but it feels like i just witnessed the most expensive shit movie of all time.
[quote comment=“119129”]I thought the movie was actually done great. Now the game on the other hand is a near total disaster
http://www.xboxps3gamereviews.com/xbox-360/spiderman-3-xbox-360-version-review//quote
LOL what you are you blind. they movie was a bomb. It sucked so bad it was 3 hours of them walking and talking and 45 min of fight at most and most of that was at the end. what worse was the butched the characters from the comics. pls if you want to make a comic book movie stick was the comic story line. if you like this movie them you most of like the incredible hulk. the truth is the movie only worth the last hour and even a rtard can put the story line together on what they did not miss. It bad enough people bring their 4-12 year old kids there but having them high on sugar and caffeen is a bad idea
I really dont see how people hate this movie so much. I mean the first and second one were better, but that doesnt make the third one bad. Im not gonna give the “Focus on positives instead of negatives” bull****, im just gonna say things like Emo Parker were meant to be stupid, not serious, and thats how I percieved it. Also, they didnt really explain that the Venom thing amplafies your wants and fears, Peter wants to be cool, and that was amplafied by Venom, turning him into a total weirdo. He had little self control. But ok, it’s your opinion. I just wanted to throw mine out as well. :)
A little late-ish, but for the record, I’m pretty much with you. I’ve posted my thoughts and they echo yours for the most part.
i’m sorry, but it really really does suck :)