It is often my custom to post a review of a popular movie that I've seen recently, and Spidie 3 just came out. A noble movie, well worthy of the super hero genre, which I got to watch over the weekend. Sadly, because I'm in the throws of finals, I do not have time for a full review. But if anybody wants to get the ball rolling (in the form of a comment), my blog would be happy to host such a diverting discussion.
Last year a highly inferior flick (Pirates II) spawned a heated debate maxing out at 15 comments. Spiderman deserves at least a fraction of that...
6 comments:
Any full review I start with is going to be on my blog. Maybe I'll steal the discussion! Of course, I have to get out and see it first. That's usually helpful.
Gladly do I take this challenge!
*** Author's note: This review contains minor spoilers. That means Sarah should stop reading at this time.
Let me first say that I am a Marvel guy. Always have been, and always will be. Superman will not have the same place in my heart as Spidey (note the proper spelling!), Wolverine, The Hulk, and yes, even Ghost Rider. I like the depth of the characters and their back stories. I like that (in general) the heroes are generally spawned from mutation (natural or unnatural) as opposed to being alien like Superman (last son of Krypton), Wonder Woman, (Amazonian princess), or Green Lantern (possessor of intergalactic artifact). Batman is the exception. Maybe we can move him into Marvel someday.
My point (and I am getting to it) is that effective characters are those you can identify with. Few can identify with Superman. Every geek and nerd in the world identifies with Peter Parker. He is their prototype: brainy, scrawny, unable to associate with girls, and fumbling at times. He is also what they want to be: chivalrous, heroic, super-powered, fun loving, and very willing to throw sarcastic comments at the bad guy while beating him up. That's what makes Spidey great. And the three movies have channeled that spirit beautifully. Have the movies been campy? Umm, yeah, kinda. Good dialogue? Yes but nothing terribly quotable. What about the plot? It’s OK, but you generally know how the movies will end. The effects have been great but I don't think they carried the movie (The Matrix, anyone?). The casting is great for each one of the characters from Peter and MJ down to Aunt May, etc., but individually you don't have Jack Nicholson, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner or Johnny Depp. By process of elimination we are down to the characters themselves.
Why am I making a big deal out of this? Because this dynamic changes in the this installment. The first two movies gave us the trials of Peter reconciling himself with his powers and his personal life. This theme continues in the third installment, but the tenor is different from the beginning: Peter is happy with his personal life and well-regarded in the community as Spidey. Throughout the movie, Peter grows in confidence and arrogance. This kind of kills the fanboy association with Spidey. He's no longer 'one of us'. While intentional for the nature of the story and plot, it was a bit of a let-down to see everything perfect for him. This propagates throughout the entire movie until the last scene with pretty poor resolution. Given the endings in the other two movies, it was a bit of a letdown. In fact, the audience at the show I went to started to get up before the end of the movie and then couldn't seem to figure out if it was done when the credits started rolling. This was bothersome.
The main theme is pretty easy to spot in retrospect, but not easily seen during the movie: personal responsibility. The key is an old saying, used by every God-fearing (and parent-fearing) child with their hand in the cookie jar: "The devil made me do it!"
Bad guys first. The Sandman's back-story is that he is driven to a life of crime by the need to get medicine/treatment for his ailing daughter. He is spends the story searching for redemption from the crimes he commits in the name of increasing the quality of life for his daughter. He is always saying he didn't mean to do bad things and his crimes were accidental. But he never takes personal ownership of his errors. In the end he received forgiveness but it did not seem to affect his character. One is left to wonder if he will he commit crimes again if put in the same circumstances. Next is Harry Osborne, Jr. When last we saw him, he was simmering with rage that Peter had killed his father. In a fit of what appeared to be psychological trauma, Harry finds his father's lab. Using the tools and drugs there, he takes it upon himself to avenge his father's killer, Spiderman. Unlike
his father (who was driven mad during the experiment that made him the Green Goblin) he seems to be generally lucid about the revenge, believing it to be his responsibility to kill Peter. "You knew this was coming Pete!" he cries, divorcing himself from the responsibility of his actions. Finally, we have Eddie Brock. He is a new photographer
for the Daily Bugle and wants a full time job. JJ (cigar chomping boss) pits Eddie and Peter against each other. Eddie cheats to get the job, but is exposed by Pete and disgraced publicly. Kneeling in a church, he appears to be asking for forgiveness. Instead, he prays for revenge on Peter. He gets it by way of the alien symbiot and becomes Venom, Spiderman's arch-enemy. Eddie is truly an example of an unredeemable character. He has embraced his sins and considered anything good as a fault. Not only did the devil make him do it, but he decided that the devil was right and his parents were wrong!
Now for the heroes side of the movie: Peter and MJ. For all Peter's qualities, he's never had to do the day-to-day maintenance required of a relationship until now. The (virtual) honeymoon is clearly over and he and MJ can't seem to relate once the popularity shoe is on the other foot and MJ is left feeling underappreciated. As mentioned above, Peter fails miserably during his stint as a popular guy and pushes MJ away in the process. Metaphorically, Peter is infected by the alien symbiot that makes him more powerful, more confident and more arrogant. He is warned repeatedly about his behavior and the
affect it has on him but he pushes away the responsibility to make it easier on himself. It takes a shock to Peter's system to get him to realize what he has turned into. He does turn from the symbiot but there has been irreparable damage done to his relationship with MJ. MJ herself has her "hand in the cookie jar" moment, but immediately afterwards genuinely regrets it and seeks forgiveness. Of all the characters, the non-hero is (ironically) the one who responds to sin and evil by recoiling from it and repenting. Didn’t expect that, did you?
OK, that concludes the heady stuff. The effects are, once again, top notch. The movie suffers a little from fatigue midway though given the fact that we’re trying to keep up with 5 major characters. If I could change one thing, it would be the treatment of Sandman. He’s a weak villain straight out of the villain cut-out book. There are many other Spidey villains that have better back-stories so their choice of Sandman is curious. I think they choose these villains now based on the degree of difficulty to do the effects! The transformation sequence with this was cool, but I wasn’t scared of him at any time. Even Venom could have been scarier. In the comics he frequently conversed with himself in the third person plural (where have I seen that before?). Too bad we don’t get more time with this character. Deeper development of the villains would have made the movie much better. Oh, and there’s a great Stan Lee cameo. You’ll know him when you see him!
That having been said, I really liked the movie. I give it a solid B, maybe B+ . I’ll answer the obvious question: Why just a B if it’s a good movie? Here’s the reason: it’s a comic book movie! Its not Tolkien or Casablanca or Braveheart. It won’t inspire me to change my life or reveal some great truth. I don’t expect a comic book movie to do that and you shouldn’t either! But the Spiderman movies did do two very important things no other movies did. First, it allowed people like me to not be embarrassed that they know about comic book characters in front of everyone. And second, it made the movie industry realize that this trove of untapped characters could be made into movies with a great deal of success. For that, I am forever grateful to Sam Raimi and his team.
Grade: B to B+
P.S. Yes, I know I'm a geek. Comment on the review, not me!
Thanks big brother!
I, for one, do not have the proper comic book background to make a good comparison as Jeff did. So my comments will be more on a surface level concerning the characters and plot as they are in the movie, and my own background as a philosopher and theologian.
In general it was a good movie. Not excellent, but a solid superhero flik. Considering the amount of garbage Hollywood does produce, this can be recognized as a superior production.
One of the reasons why I like superhero movies so much is because a superhero instantiates (incarnates, if you will) the virtues that the author gives him. Someone like Spiderman (or Superman, or Mr. Incredible, etc) becomes an icon of what a it means to be a hero. And even if you don't have superpowers, the message of their virtue still remains.
From this perspective, Spiderman 3 had a great message. Woven throughout the dialogue and imagery was the theme of 1) personal responsibility, and 2) forgiveness. Parker's sarcastic words "you want forgiveness? find religion" turned out to be absolutely true (in a Catholic Church no less!). Ultimately, Parker was only able to overcome Venom by the help of the Church (through the bells, which are sacramentals) and by "forgiving yourself" as Aunt May told him. Also, immediately afterwards, he takes a shower--baptismal imagery anyone? The theme of forgiveness is also applied between Harry and Peter, and the fruits of their forgiveness was the spectacular partnership that they produced to save MJ. There are more examples, but the point is evident: being a hero is not just about beating up the bad guys; forgiveness can be the opportunity to not only defeat the bad guys, but help them transform into true, good, and noble heroes.
It is great to see such a powerful and untimidly Christian theme being played out on such popular media. Sadly, there were several things that prevented it from achieving, what I think could have been a more powerful delivery.
First, there is a fine line between a profound example of forgiveness and a sentimental exchange of "let's all just get along." some moment (see: Sandman final scene) were really leaning on the side of sentimentality. Also, as Jeff mentioned, the Villians were just not scary enough. The better the villian, the better the hero is when he bests him.
Finally, when Peter uses the Venom suit, it heightens his aggression and he starts doing some mean stuff. The message seems to be: anger is evil. I would contend that (just as I contend it when Yoda says the same thing.) There are several things that Peter does under the influence of Venom that were, to an extent, justifiable. He completely nailed Brock about the picture forgery, and he finally told Harry the terrible truth no one had the heart to tell him before: Harry's father had no real love for his son, and he saw him as an embarrassment. This little piece of information was necessary for Harry to finally break out from his father's evil shadow. Now granted, Peter always went too far with his aggression, but that is not the same as saying all anger is unjustifiable.
Anyway, that's my rant for now. Happy commenting!
Matt,
A quick follow-up to your assessment of the anger motif. The comics spell this out a little more clearly. The alien suit is actually a conscious organism with free will, not just an create responding to survival instinct. Its affect on Peter was to heighten his powers, but not necessarily his aggression. However, the alien did want to be more powerful and did not like the restraints Peter set on it during playtime. When it was spurned by Peter, it reacted like a jilted lover, and had a very willing partner in Eddie. The suit/Eddie combo known as Venom has been known to assist the good guys every now and then too, but mostly for its own benefit. So the presentation that the alien was solely a parasite that heightens aggression is not canonical. My guess is that it was easier to treat it that way than to add yet another sentient being to the mix in this already crowded movie. Personally, I could have done without Sandman and used more Venom in this movie. as I mentioned, Sandman is a cookie cutter villain made up in a way where you really can't love him or hate him. Venom you can hate and appreciate for his depth of character.
I always rather liked Superman. As far as characters go, Spiderman is certainly easier to identiy with, but as far as superheros go (as opposed to just heroes), I never wanted one I could identify with. I'm sure that's relevant to the discussion somehow.
Jumping ahead a bit.. I found it interesting that the alien as.. worn?.. by it's host changed depending on who it was with; it looked different with Peter, who was willing to act up but not entirely embrace it, and with Eddie who was grateful for something to increase his power and allow him to express his hate and take revenge. I don't know whether that's in the comics (I'm deficient in some areas). From what I've heard about Venom, I think I would have liked to see him developed a lot more, but the movie didn't give me enough to go on to decide one way or another about that.
Both rather minor bits of something to add; but I promised something after I saw it (aside from my own review), and this way I can act like I'm contributing something to the discussion before I go to bed. Go me.
Y'all think alot. But I guess somebody has to do it.
Let's just say "I laughed, I cried, it moved me Bob." GREAT MOVIE! I loved it...until Harry died : (
Sarah
P.S. And Jeff what do you mean there's no quotable lines? "Looks like I got here just in time!" "Couple minutes ago coulda been okay too"
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