Spideython: Spider-Man 3

I've always lived by the notion that not everyone is always perfect, but we shouldn't let that affect how we feel about them. The Raimi Spider-Man trilogy is a good example of that. We had two fantastic films, and then we had Spider-Man 3. But, is Spider-Man 3 really all that bad to begin with?

I've heard many murmurings as to why this film seems so off in comparison with the others in the series. I've heard rumors that Raimi was rushed to get the film out on time. I've heard that the studio demanded certain characters be added to add a certain depth or something. While it's unknown if these rumors carry any real weight towards the problems this movie has, you can definitely tell that something was wrong behind the scenes. But I don't think it necessarily really calls for the backlash that people give it.

The story follows starts out on a largely different note than the last two, as it seems that Peter has got his life together and he's balancing his private life and Spider-Man well. But things seem to become a lot darker as now that his best friend Harry knows his secret, he wants him killed. Wrap that in with a space symbiote subplot and the appearance of the Sandman, and you've got a bit of a mess, frankly. I can try and back up this film, but I will not shy away from saying that the amount of subplots and unnecessary scenes in this film is rather high, so much so that it can become confusing at times.

This film is not perfect at all, and I'm not going to say it is, but it isn't a total mess. There's some really good parts of it, but also some really bad parts. Anything dealing with Thomas Haden Church's Sandman and the black-suit Spider-Man are all really, really solid. Thomas Haden Church gives a groundbreaking performance that's borderline Oscar-worthy for a superhero film, you can feel your heart breaking for the character in certain scenes, almost feeling yourself wanting to root for him in the end. The darker fight scenes with the black-suit Spidey are well choreographed and you can see the darkness inside Peter slowly start to come out until it climaxes in that one infamous scene later in the film.

The bad parts, though, they are pretty bad, no doubt. Harry's amnesia subplot is kinda unnecessary as he ends up coming out of it, but in the end they redeem Peter in Harry's eyes so he helps him anyway, so that seems like a big waste of time. Gwen Stacy is in this film, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, but you probably barely remember her, and for good reason. And Venom...what the fuck was venom, seriously?

And like I said, no one's perfect. This film did a lot of things right, and some things terribly, but it's by no means the trainwreck a lot of people claim it is. I still enjoy it to a certain extent, and I give it a 7.1/10 for what it does do right. It's a shame that that's where the Raimi trilogy ended, because a proper send off for Maguire's Spider-Man would have been wonderful. But, you know how studios are...they're reckless...as we'll be seeing come tomorrow.