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Spiderman 3
Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco
Rated: PG-13
140 minutes
So summer has officially begun. Sure, by the calendar there are a couple more months, and the kids still have some days of school left. But on the big screen summer has finally arrived with this years first blockbuster, Spiderman 3. By their nature, blockbusters don’t have to be good to make money, they have to be BIG and flashy with lots of special effects.
Sometimes however, a blockbuster successfully includes storyline, and character development to make a truly fantastic movie. Such was the way of the first Spiderman. This time out however, it’s mostly just special effects. And it’s no wonder, this being the most expensive film ever made in U.S. dollars, with a budget of $250 million. Breaking King Kong’s record of $207 million.
In this third installment, our web slinger is fighting not one but three villains. There’s the New Goblin (James Franco), the bomb-throwing son of The Green Goblin who, so annoyingly will not forgive Spiderman for his fathers death; Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), a good man with bad luck who escapes from prison and stumbles into a science experiment leaving his molecules able to shift and solidify like grains of sand; and Venom (Maguire and Topher Grace), an alien symbiote that bonds to an organic host and amplifies its strengths and weaknesses.
That’s a whole lot of villain for any movie and Spiderman 3 comes very close to the X-men and Batman trap of cramming too much into two hours. Mostly though it’s the insipid relationship dialogue that brings this movie down. Thankfully it’s a Sam Rami movie so we at least get to see the wonderful Bruce Campbell, this time as a French Maître d’.
If nothing else, action movie fans can safely enjoy their
popcorn with Spidey until the Transformers comes out next month.
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