‹ Sunday Music Spotlight – The Detroit Cobras •
Just got back from seeing a little film you may have heard something about: Spiderman 3. My reaction? Meh. I’m not asking for my money back, but I won’t be rushing out for the DVD either. Venom and Sandman were cool. Black-suited Spidey was also cool. So why the ambivalence? It was all just too much. Too many plot lines. Too many villains. Too much action in the action sequences.
That last point may not make sense. Allow me to explain. There’s a growing trend in action movies to film fight sequence in super-up-close shaky cam. I suppose the intention is to make you see what it’s like to be in the heart of the fight. The actual effect, for me at least, is I don’t a have a fucking clue what’s going on. And that may be realistic. Maybe in a real fight there’s confusion and uncertainty. But this isn’t real life. It’s a movie. I want to know what’s going on. Now if I could just get those kids off my lawn…
In my opinion this really should have been two movies. Since they crammed everything into one movie it kind of suffers from Batman syndrome: Gee, the first one was good and it only had one villain. Let’s make more, and cram more villains into each of them. That can’t possibly fail! I don’t think you can convince me that the Spiderman/Black-Suite Spidey/Venom scenario wouldn’t have held its own as a movie. And Sandman is a very compelling villain. Leave him for Spiderman 4 (or 5 or 18).
Speaking of leaving things…Is there somewhere we can all vote to get Snaggletooth out of these movies? Let’s check her summer-blockbuster leading lady credentials: Is she a great actress? No. Not terrible, but certainly not anything to write home about. Is she hot? Hells no. She wouldn’t be hot if you’d just spent 10 years in a super max prison. So really, why is she here?
One more thing: the middle section of the movie, especially the jazz-club scene, is laughable. And not “oh how clever, that’s really funny” laughable. More like “Sorry Sam, this isn’t Evil Dead 2, I’m not buying it” laughable.
Ok, enough bashing. There were some good things. Topher Grace was great as Eddie Brock/Venom. Ditto for Thomas Hayden Church as Sandman/Flint Marko (POLO!). The Sandman and Venom effects were also amazing. And Bruce Campbell’s cameo was very funny.
Anyway, here’s my official verdict: 40 minutes of popcorn-chomping fun in a 160 minute package. If you’re a fan of the franchise, or just looking for a good time at the movies, there are worse ways to spend an evening.
For a more cogent and entertaining review head over to Filmspotting and hear what Adam & Sam have to say.
Rating: 
