Spider-Manic Depression
No this isn't just another article where some nerd bashes on Spider-Man 3. I liked Spider-Man 3. It seems like nerds just let one stupid dance ruin the whole film. Personally, I loved it.
First things first, I was pleasantly surprised by the first fight between Harry and Peter. Harry gets super injured, which was really unexpected. This is what first got me thinking, "Maybe this movie is more than what I thought it'd be." His memory gets all messy and you get to see that loving relationship that they used to have back in the first film. Harry is the plot that I was looking forward to the most, because he's what connects all three movies together. Harry is a truly tragic hero. He makes mistakes and never does anything truly horrific, but he does really screw up. He beats up Pete, but Harry gets a lot more beat up. And even though manipulating MJ into hurting Pete was nasty, but nothing like murder. Harry redeems himself in the end, sacrificing himself to save Pete, unifying him, Peter, and MJ for one last time before he dies. Tragic.
His plot was a way to hearken back directly to the first film, to remind us why the hell this guy Peter Parker is running around in a Spider-man outfit. It’s a bit of a ret-con to make him Uncle Ben's killer, but I didn't really care. It seems like such a tiny thing in comparison to the larger picture of the movie. They even show you that he was involved in crime with the dude Pete and the cops thought was the killer in the first one, so it's not even that hard to stretch. Like Doc Ock and Norman Osbourne in the previous films, you have sympathy for the guy. His life is just total crap. Pete forgiving him was like a big release, letting go of his anger for Uncle Ben's death and any remaining thoughts of revenge. On a side note, Sandman reforming out of sand for the first time is the one of the most surreal and beautiful things I've ever seen
The black outfit was just a great plot device. It allowed Pete to do a lot of fun and mean stuff that he just could not have done otherwise. It helped progress plot nicely. This was very good for the connection to Sandman's plot, making Pete get more and more consumed by revenge. This ultimately leads to the birth of Venom.
I expected Venom to feel very disjointed from the rest of the plot,
but he's not. He's the embodiment of that nasty suit, of the revenge
that could have consumed Peter. He's a reflection of what Peter could
have become. This guy is also the first villain of the series that has
no gray area. Eddie Brock is a jerk and he needed to be. We have two
other gray area villains, one leaning white (Harry), one leaning a
little more black (Sandman), so having someone in the utter black of
evil was a nice change of pace. And I am in no way some big "SYMBIOTE
RULES!" fan. Venom is interesting in the comics, but I don't give a hoot that he's not the anti-hero in the movie. That wouldn't have worked. Make him a monster. People needed a face to hate. And he really deserved to get incinerated.
So you see, I liked this movie a lot. A ton in fact.
There's news that the next Spider-Man film is going to be a two-parter, much like Pirate of the Caribbean 2 & 3 and The Matrix sequels. I hope it works out well, because the aforementioned pirate movies made a lot of money but ended up more like visual spectacles than real stories. The choice of making a two-part movie is understandable. Spider-Man 3 cost nearly 300 million to make. It was a risky move to have that kind of a budget but it paid off. Two-part films generally cost less, so I'm happy if it keeps them from breaking that 300+ mark for the 4th and 5th films. All is good with Spider-Man… all but one little thing…
What annoys me is the comic book. A little thing called "Brand New Day".
I'll get to that in part 2.
-Nick L.
