The Official Spider-Man 3 Review Thread (SPOILERS)

[thecooties]

A friend and I checked out a screening of Spiderman 3 last week and after put some cameras on as we discussed the film.

Discuss = pick apart nearly ever scene.

There's lots of spoilers, but we don't give away the ending. It can be seen at http://www.cakebite.com/?p=43

[Lord Voldemoo]

Hi, welcome to the Zone. We have a Spiderman 3 thread already going so I'm going to repost this over there and lock this one up.

EDIT: Actually, since there are reviews now popping up all over the place, I guess it's time to start a review thread...unlocking.

It's running at 86% after 7 reviews at RT right now...looking pretty good so far.

[Ribbons]

Wait, don't we usually just move the threads from the news section into the reviews section? Unless I've been oblivious to the residence/creation of threads past, which is definitely possible.

[Lord Voldemoo]

Wait, don't we usually just move the threads from the news section into the reviews section? Unless I've been oblivious to the residence/creation of threads past, which is definitely possible.

we've done it both ways. For 300 we started a new thread. If anyone has a strong preference, let me know and I'll set it up that way. Nobody's really posted in this thread yet anyway.

[Ribbons]

Wait, don't we usually just move the threads from the news section into the reviews section? Unless I've been oblivious to the residence/creation of threads past, which is definitely possible.

we've done it both ways. For 300 we started a new thread. If anyone has a strong preference, let me know and I'll set it up that way. Nobody's really posted in this thread yet anyway.

Okeley-dokeley.

Also, ONLY 86%? Sounds like a turd!

[Chairman Kaga]

Since when did the opinions of RT count for something in The Zone?

[thecooties]

The problem with RT, especially in this case, is that mostly all the reviews are very mixed, yet it counts them as good and in the end gives it a much higher rating than it deserves.

[havocSchultz]

Since when did the opinions of RT count for something in The Zone?

Only when it comes to Snakes on a Plane...

[thecooties]

so.. does anyone want to talk about the movie?

[Lord Voldemoo]

so.. does anyone want to talk about the movie?

This thread will liven up a bit once people have seen it.

Meanwhile, here are some links to some reviews that are up:

I'm avoiding them...so I dunno, but PROBABLY SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!

Hollywood Reporter

Variety

IGN

Sci-Fi Movie Page.com

Dark Horizons

Emmanuel Levy

This is London

[Evil Hobbit]

I just came back from the cinemas and frankly, it was a bit of a letdown. And that is for 90% to blame on the horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE AUDIENCE!! I never - ever - experienced this insanity. The people went balistic, bursting into laughter and applauds at the most unlaughable moments.

MAJOR SPOILERS COMING UP...









All the dramatic scenes, like the one were MJ has to break up with Peter and his heart is broken by the news, it was a realy touching scene.. so, my lovely audience started to applaud and cheer and laugh. Like, omG??? Another example, Peter can't controll his Venom rage and slaps MJ to the ground. CHEERS AND LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE!! It was insane! During almost every non-action scene, talking, talking talking talking talking, making fun of the scenes onscreen. It was stupid. And it wasn't like just a few guys, no it was like 75% of the audience! Truly insane.

Now, back to the movie in general. It has a great pacing and Raimi delivers the goodies with some insanely well done action scenes. Though I must say, I sometimes had a bit enough of the comedy interruptions. Like in the final battle. You jump back way to often to the news reporters and the kids saying COOL and SO FRIKKIN COOL. It just drags you out (specially with my audience). It's fun one time, but after that it gets annoying, just continue the action svp, specially a final battle doesn't need exta comic relief.

Raimi still has his goofy moments and puts in a lengthy sequence were Peter truns in to a self-indulgent machoman. Walking around, flirting to the ladies. Going out with the way to hot Gwen Stacy were he suddenly turns in to the Mask and takes over the bong congo jazz club to humiliate MJ. I mean, it has it's charm and it is quite funny but perhaps just a little to much out of character.

I also think that there wasn't realy a main storyline. There are so much villains brought in, and so much 'major' storylines that you never get the time to get emotionaly engaged with one of them.

All in all it's a pretty solid film but not as engaging as Spidy 2. On a sidenote; the Bruce Campbell cameo is pure comic brilliance! Now I'm gonna watch it again tomorrow, got the day off so gonna check it in the morning in a quite theatre. I was very annoyed and never realy got into it so perhaps my take on it will be different after a normal viewing.

For now I rate it; 7/10

Spidy 1; 8/10
Spidy 2; 9/10

[so sorry]

Hobbit, where the hell are you seeing this so early?

[Evil Hobbit]

Hobbit, where the hell are you seeing this so early?

the Netherlands baby, most awesome country in the world! It opened today.

[so sorry]

Hobbit, where the hell are you seeing this so early?

the Netherlands baby, most awesome country in the world! It opened today.

that explains the audience problems

[Evil Hobbit]

Hobbit, where the hell are you seeing this so early?

the Netherlands baby, most awesome country in the world! It opened today.

that explains the audience problems

haha I must say, there were a LOT of 14 year old kids at the screening, ya know; the look how cool and mature I am type. At least I'm never catching a movie again on 6.30pm at the city theatre during holiday's. Only Rotterdam Zuid (south) for now on.

[Pacino86845]

Hobbit, where the hell are you seeing this so early?

the Netherlands baby, most awesome country in the world! It opened today.

Same in Switzerland, and I just got back from watching it!!!

Bottom line (dunno if I'll have time to write a review tonight): I thought Spider-man 3 was on par with its predecessors... although I wouldn't necessarily rate ANY of the Spider-man films in my top 3 superhero films list, I do think that this is now the most consistently good superhero franchise of all time.

I think each of the Spidey films has had its strengths and weaknesses, but each one managed to offer something new. And Sam Raimi has proven his ability at making things evolve, as well as his profound understanding of the more human mythology of the Marvel universe, which is of course exemplified in Spider-man.

Like I said, I'm not a HUGE fan of the Spidey franchise, but all films get a solid 7/10... that's it, 7's across the board, Spider-man 3 included. Will see about writing more later.

[Cpt Kirks 2pay]

Fallen to 71% at Rotten Tomatoes now

[Doc Holliday]

That makes me want to see it more. Half of RT don't even realise they're 'fruits' for fricks sake, though I doubt 'Vegetables' falls foul of the trades description act either...

[Cpt Kirks 2pay]

Hmm, does a rating of around 10% for stuff like Wild Hogs or Premonition or Epic Movie make you wanna see them even more, whilst a rating of about 100% for Schindler's List make you NOT wanna watch it?

Be careful of your answer Doc. Thousands of your posts' lives and credibilities are at stake here.

[Doc Holliday]

Hmm, does a rating of around 10% for stuff like Wild Hogs or Premonition or Epic Movie make you wanna see them even more, whilst a rating of about 100% for Schindler's List make you NOT wanna watch it?

Be careful of your answer Doc. Thousands of your posts' lives and credibilities are at stake here.

All that proves is even the readership of HEAT magazine gets it right once in a while. You might just as well poll people who go to Tupperware Parties.

[Flumm]

Ugh, is it just me, or does this whole thing with Parker turning into some goofily misguided cocksure lothariputz segment sound less than spiffy.

[Evil Hobbit]

I also realy missed Danny Elfman!! The film kicks off with the brilliant Elfman theme, so perfectly matching the Marvel leader, but then it is taken over by the new music by Young and well. It just falls instantly flat. It is very uninspired and simplistic. The new themes for Sandman and Venom are realy uninventive and look very pale next to the playfull and multi-layored effort by Elfman. It's much like the Jurassic Park 3 score where the new themes are simple and disbanded as quick as possible to rehash the familiar Elfman cues. It's a pitty realy, Spidy deserves better.

[Cpt Kirks 2pay]

Hmm, does a rating of around 10% for stuff like Wild Hogs or Premonition or Epic Movie make you wanna see them even more, whilst a rating of about 100% for Schindler's List make you NOT wanna watch it?

Be careful of your answer Doc. Thousands of your posts' lives and credibilities are at stake here.

All that proves is even the readership of HEAT magazine gets it right once in a while. You might just as well poll people who go to Tupperware Parties.

Just answer the question. If you can't, then your credibility is dead as a daisy.

Flumm, I dunno how to answer your question as 1. I haven't seen the mid section yet, but 2. From what I heard, it don't sound like it's that 'dark' to me, which might be the biggest underwhelment due to my reasonable expectations. So far then, this middle section just seems uninteresting to me from what's now been described, and in a film that already seems to me that I can find more suspense and drama in watching wether or not my young love, Chelsea, gets through to the next round of Search For The Next Pussicat Doll.

[Fried Gold]

I also realy missed Danny Elfman!! The film kicks off with the brilliant Elfman theme, so perfectly matching the Marvel leader, but then it is taken over by the new music by Young and well. It just falls instantly flat. It is very uninspired and simplistic. The new themes for Sandman and Venom are realy uninventive and look very pale next to the playfull and multi-layored effort by Elfman. It's much like the Jurassic Park 3 score where the new themes are simple and disbanded as quick as possible to rehash the familiar Elfman cues. It's a pitty realy, Spidy deserves better.

I think Elfman was involved.

[Chairman Kaga]

I also realy missed Danny Elfman!! The film kicks off with the brilliant Elfman theme, so perfectly matching the Marvel leader, but then it is taken over by the new music by Young and well. It just falls instantly flat. It is very uninspired and simplistic. The new themes for Sandman and Venom are realy uninventive and look very pale next to the playfull and multi-layored effort by Elfman. It's much like the Jurassic Park 3 score where the new themes are simple and disbanded as quick as possible to rehash the familiar Elfman cues. It's a pitty realy, Spidy deserves better.

I think Elfman was involved.

Elfman had a huge public blow up with Raimi after Spidey 2 saying it was his worst professional work experience ever. So I doubt he did anything with part 3.

[Fried Gold]

I also realy missed Danny Elfman!! The film kicks off with the brilliant Elfman theme, so perfectly matching the Marvel leader, but then it is taken over by the new music by Young and well. It just falls instantly flat. It is very uninspired and simplistic. The new themes for Sandman and Venom are realy uninventive and look very pale next to the playfull and multi-layored effort by Elfman. It's much like the Jurassic Park 3 score where the new themes are simple and disbanded as quick as possible to rehash the familiar Elfman cues. It's a pitty realy, Spidy deserves better.

I think Elfman was involved.

Elfman had a huge public blow up with Raimi after Spidey 2 saying it was his worst professional work experience ever. So I doubt he did anything with part 3.

Apparently he worked with Christopher Young to help him integrate his own themes with the new ones.

[Chairman Kaga]

I also realy missed Danny Elfman!! The film kicks off with the brilliant Elfman theme, so perfectly matching the Marvel leader, but then it is taken over by the new music by Young and well. It just falls instantly flat. It is very uninspired and simplistic. The new themes for Sandman and Venom are realy uninventive and look very pale next to the playfull and multi-layored effort by Elfman. It's much like the Jurassic Park 3 score where the new themes are simple and disbanded as quick as possible to rehash the familiar Elfman cues. It's a pitty realy, Spidy deserves better.

I think Elfman was involved.

Elfman had a huge public blow up with Raimi after Spidey 2 saying it was his worst professional work experience ever. So I doubt he did anything with part 3.

Apparently he worked with Christopher Young to help him integrate his own themes with the new ones.

Based on what? He isn't credited anywhere outside of creating "themes" much like John Williams on the Superman and Jaws sequels.

[Pacino86845]

Apparently he worked with Christopher Young to help him integrate his own themes with the new ones.

Based on what? He isn't credited anywhere.

Actually, Elfman is credited for "original themes," and Chris Young got the "score" credit.

[Chairman Kaga]

What did I say?

[Pacino86845]

What did I say?

You know what you said, edit button be damned.

[Chairman Kaga]

For some reason at work hitting return makes my browser submit when I don't intend it.

[Pacino86845]

Ok, I'm gonna go a bit more in depth with my reactions to Spider-man 3... I'll keep this review totally spoiler-free. My main motivation for writing it is that I'm getting the feeling that the critics are not appreciating the tonal shift of Spidey 3 relative to the first two films.

I believe, however, that fans of the comics will totally eat up the 60's-70's vibe Raimi injected in this third installment. What doesn't work this time around is the story... everything's kind of a cheesy, over-the-top, slapped-together mess, but I still got the feeling that there was order to the chaos.

Still, certain key elements of the story worked really well. The Harry subplot gets amazing treatment, through and through, and James Franco completely stepped up to the plate and delivered as Harry Osborn. Thomas Haden Church as Sandman was a brilliant casting decision, and even though Sandman doesn't get a lot of play in the movie, every second of his screen time is used poignantly, and the sand effects are top notch.

What didn't work, what never worked in my opinion, are Peter's relationships to Aunt May and MJ. Thankfully, Aunt May doesn't get a lot of screen time, so besides some cheesy stuff in the beginning she doesn't do much in the film. And as for MJ, Raimi et al. made her relationship to Peter go through a pleasant amount of turbulence, and this was a welcome element.

Venom is kind of a putz, but the character of Eddie Brock was handled pretty well. Venom himself, though, kind of looked puny and he sounded like a velociraptor. Also, a couple of reaction shots reminded me of the little Alien hand puppet...

There's actually a lot that we can pick apart in this movie, but putting all of that aside, the whole package delivers in a very satisfactory way. Like I said above, I think Spider-man 3 is definitely on par with its predecessors. Maybe all the little parts of this installment have their flaws, but there's definitely a sense of a unified whole, and the tone of this film in particular, thanks to that 60's-70's vibe, is a lot more "comicbooky" than the first two... and thanks to that, I think we can let Raimi get away with jamming this movie with lots of stuff.

I think it was Balmy who, upon reading the novelization, compared this to X-Men 3. I can definitely see the comparison, but as someone who didn't like X-Men 3, let me just say that this is the movie that X-Men 3 COULD have been if Ratner was given more time to work on it.

So, Spider-man 3 should definitely be seen by everyone and their grandma... and even though no single Spider-man movie blew me away, I do believe that this is the most consistently good series of superhero films of all time.

7/10

*Some extra notes:
-Bruce Campbell's cameo is pure genius, the best of all three films
-I did NOT miss Elfman's music... his themes were still there, but the music was a lot better this time around, adding to the retro vibe
-Gwen Stacey is teh hotness

[Tubbs Tattsyrup]

60's-70's vibe Raimi injected

I'm...I'm hard. I'm hard!

[Cpt Kirks 2pay]

60's-70's vibe Raimi injected

I'm...I'm hard. I'm hard!

So am I, just for Gwen Stacy alone. The rest of the movie can fark right off by the sounds of it.

[Tubbs Tattsyrup]

60's-70's vibe Raimi injected

I'm...I'm hard. I'm hard!

So am I

I am no longer hard. Take that however you want to.

[thebostonlocksmith]

Hobbit, where the hell are you seeing this so early?

the Netherlands baby, most awesome country in the world! It opened today.

I saw spiderman 2 in Amsterdam... and it was amazing... they did a really great thing with all of the tram stops where they turned them all into massive spider webs (not literally) they just stuck loads of stuff all over them, but they did look really good.... Maybe that was just my poor weak mind after a whole week of being rediculously out of it...

[Evil Hobbit]

You dutch as well mate?

Saw spidey again today, I agree with Pacino above. Except the music stuff. A lot of parents and 6 year olds in the audience today, lots of screaming and talking kids that is. Parents should realy think twice before taking their kids to a movie that is rated 12+

Still a 7-10 for me.

[Ribbons]

where the hell are you seeing this so early?

the Netherlands baby, most awesome country in the world! It opened today.

Same in Switzerland, and I just got back from watching it!!!

Bottom line (dunno if I'll have time to write a review tonight): I thought Spider-man 3 was on par with its predecessors... although I wouldn't necessarily rate ANY of the Spider-man films in my top 3 superhero films list, I do think that this is now the most consistently good superhero franchise of all time.

I think each of the Spidey films has had its strengths and weaknesses, but each one managed to offer something new. And Sam Raimi has proven his ability at making things evolve, as well as his profound understanding of the more human mythology of the Marvel universe, which is of course exemplified in Spider-man.

Like I said, I'm not a HUGE fan of the Spidey franchise, but all films get a solid 7/10... that's it, 7's across the board, Spider-man 3 included.

Thanks for the review Pacino; I was wondering if you could explain or elaborate a little bit on the human mythology thing though.

[Pacino86845]

Thanks for the review Pacino; I was wondering if you could explain or elaborate a little bit on the human mythology thing though.

Yeah I guess I'm not saying anything new, since it's a bit what separates the Marvel universe from the DC one... that the heroes are more relatable somehow, more flawed, whereas the DC heroes are more like gods.

In the case of the Spidey films, Raimi was consistent in depicting human themes and linking them to the more fantastical elements of the stories. In the third film, family again plays a central role in defining not only our titular hero, but for Harry and Sandman as well.

What always added strong menace to the Spider-man stories was that the "enemies" had more personal agendas than "world domination" or something to that extent. The enemies always hit close to home, and this made them at the same time frightening and yet relatable... more "human."

I dunno, I'm kinda having trouble explaining it, but what I think separates Raimi's approach from other directors who've done superhero films is that he didn't go for the "making it cool" angle... as cheesy/generic as some of the character elements may be, Raimi ultimately kept everything you'd find in the comics... rather than getting rid of things, or replacing them with more realistic elements, he rather kept a tongue-in-cheek atmosphere in the films.

The X-Men series, for instance, I'd use as an example of what Raimi didn't do. Now those are also fairly good films (especially the second), but they DID dispense with a lot of the things you'd find in the comics... this was done very well, but X-Men was used to make a point about our modern day society rather than try to create its own mythology.

[RogueScribner]

Hey, does anyone know how Spidey was shot this time around? Was it on film stock or digitally? There's a DLP screening near me and I'm interested in seeing it that way, but I thought they only did that for films shot digitally in the first place (like Revenge of the Sith and Superman Returns).

[Lord Voldemoo]

"Well, this new movie is like three episodes of One Tree Hill put together!"

Ladies and gentlemen I give you Neill err...Nell Motherfuckin' Mampleford Cumpston.

[buster00]

"Well, this new movie is like three episodes of One Tree Hill put together!"

Ladies and gentlemen I give you Neill err...Nell Motherfuckin' Mampleford Cumpston.

Oh, shit.

That was not a positive review, to say the least.

[Lord Voldemoo]

"Well, this new movie is like three episodes of One Tree Hill put together!"

Ladies and gentlemen I give you Neill err...Nell Motherfuckin' Mampleford Cumpston.

Oh, shit.

That was not a positive review, to say the least.

yup. RT is now down to 64%

here is a review that seems to echo Nell's.

[Chairman Kaga]

Is there a Neil review for the second Spidey for comparisson?

[Lord Voldemoo]

I couldn't find one, but the main site's Search function is beyond worthless, at least to me.

Anyone else have a Spidey 2 review from Cumpston??

[Chairman Kaga]

I did a google and no results.

[buster00]

I can't find a full review, but Neill is cited here saying "SPIDER-MAN 2 is the greatest gift to nerds since masturbation!"

[TonyWilson]

Wow, Mrs Cumpston's review really sums up what I didn't like about the first two films. They were bad enough with all the emo bullshit but this one sounds even worse. I'm pretty sure this is gonna suck hard.

[Chairman Kaga]

I like all that "emo bullshit". It's what seperates (for me) a good superhero film like Spidey 2 or X2 from bland, generic actiony super hero films like Daredevil or Fantastic Four etc.

[doglips]

The Spiderman films have always been about the human side of being a super-hero though. It was to be expected really. I'm still looking forward to it, if Pacino gives it a 7 it 's gotta be good.