I've just returned from the midnight showing of Spiderman 3. I have to say that while I wasn't overly excited about the movie, I did really want to see it due to the fact that it was going to have my favorite Marvel comic character, Venom. After being invited to the midnight showing I started to build up the anticipation for the movie as it drew closer.
After having seen it what do I think? I really didn't care for it. I'll start by talking about what I did enjoy. I thought that reintroducing the Green Goblin, now Harry, was a great move. Having Harry's misguided revenge muddle up friendships and the romance between MJ and Peter was great. The scenes were charged and emotional. They were a perfect fit for the third movie in the series. I also enjoyed the scenes where Spiderman was in the black costume. His change in attitude and demeanor was fitting, and it fed perfectly into the Green Goblin story of loss, revenge, and redemption.
What didn't I like? I felt that the entire plot of the Sandman was useless. He was completely extranneous and had absolutely no point in the movie. The entire plot thread could have been dropped and would have saved the movie a large amount of useless downtime. I don't especially know all of what Sandman is capable of but I don't believe he can fly like he was capable of in the movie and I didn't think he could grow to monstrous size, at least not without having more sand in the immediate area to manipulate. I felt like I was watching a large sand King Kong of sorts.Â
The worst offense though was Venom. I've always been wary about how Topher Grace was going to do as Eddie Brock. He doesn't have the size for the character and I'd never seen him display the attitude that Brock does. While I think he had most of the attitude down and I could have dealt with how he portrayed Venom, his stature just didn't fit. Venom is supposed to be a hulking beast that towers over Spiderman. He is supposed to be the predator that is stronger and faster. Here he just seemed like another punk kid with a costume. Also, was it necessary to have a crazy raptor screech for his voice and why did the Venom mask retract almost every time that Brock went to talk?
Venom should not have been introduced in the movie other than as a brief portion at the end when it would have been passed to Brock. For being Spidermans biggest villain of the last two decades, he was a waste that was easily dealt with and by all accounts actually killed! I can't even wrap my mind around that one.
Ideally I would have liked to have seen the majority of the movie having been about Spiderman's conflict with the symbiote and with Harry. It would have been more than enough plot to drive the entire movie and would have set up a beautiful fourth. The introduction and canning of Brock could have still occured and, while I don't quite understand why she needed to be added at all, Gwen Stay could still have been introduced as well.Â
Was I the only one that expected something more out of Dr. Connors. Having been shown the symbiote it could have hinted at his experiments of regeneration which would have allowed the fourth movie to be about Venom and The Lizard. Venom would have his backstory already taken care of and The Lizard's would only have required the results of his experiments.
I just didn't care for it. It could have done so many things better and left out so much of the fluff. The movie was far longer than it needed to be and fell apart under the weight of all its various plotlines.Â
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