Sam Raimi became a beloved cult director due to his Evil Dead Trilogy. Here's a quick overview for those who have not seen those wonderfully entertaining films: The first movie is a pretty straightforward student film with unintentionally funny moments, but amazing cinematography and ideas. “Evil Dead 2” had intentionally funny parts and embraced its campy roots a bit more. Finally the third film of the trilogy, “Army of Darkness”, is a near parody of itself and hangs on to comedy in order make fun of how absurd the entire trilogy is. Watching “Spider-Man 3” I have come to the realization that Raimi has completed his second “Evil Dead” trilogy. He’s used the same formula and gags to get it done; he’s just had more time and money to do it.
In the third chapter of the Spider-Man franchise Peter Parker has decided to pop the marriage question to Mary Jane. Things are looking up for him. People love Spider-Man and life provides him with more smiles. However, Mary Jane loses her job and Peter is oblivious to her own problems. Drama then follows. Meanwhile, big-shot Eddie Brock is after Peter’s job at the Daily Bugle; Marko Flint, Ben Parker’s real killer, escapes from prison and wanders in to a grain experiment; Harry Osborn loses his memory after a fight with Peter in his New Goblin suit and alien sludge conveniently lands on Earth to engulf Peter’s Spidey suit.
There’s a lot going on in this movie and when you filter all of it out, it’s really absurd. Ah, but Raimi knows this himself and takes advantage of it. After everything is nicely introduced the movie spirals into the familiar Raimi camp that made the later Evil Dead movies so much fun. Raimi spoofs the emo-kid concept by making Peter a mockery to the eyeliner wearing, eye-hiding-haired kids of today. Bruce Campell makes his most hysterical cameo appearance yet as a French waiter—It’s arguably the best and funniest moment of the film. And finally, the ridiculous Eddie Brock had me slamming my seat in laughter as he asked God to kill Peter Parker for trivial reasons.
This isn’t to say the movie is all comedy all the time. Yes, the scenes of Spider-Man swinging by the American flag is hysterical, and purposefully so, but the film manages to develop its key players without feeling too terribly cluttered. Peter’s character is convicted with whether or not he is able to take care of Mary Jane. Next he’s confronted with the power of the black Spider-Man suit, which enhances his strength, anger and emo-ness. Then he goes crazy with it and tries to hurt Harry and Mary Jane. And finally, for the first time in this series, I actually sympathized with Mary Jane. I’ve never been fond of this character; she always seemed, well… bitchy. Yet in this movie she has plenty of good reasons to be angry with Peter. Harry’s story also comes full circle and the end result is a fantastic finale. His character is far more crucial in this film than the last two and it was good seeing him get so much screen time.
The real problems in this movie lie in the villains. For all the hype surrounding Venom, he should not have been in this film and Eddie’s character should have been omitted with it. It’s no secret that Raimi isn’t a fan of the Venom character, so it comes as no surprise that the concept of this villain was underdeveloped. That said I wish more time was spent on Marko Flint, the Sandman, as he was far more interesting of a character. The worst scene is the exchange between Sandman and Venom when they first meet. Sandman is not a killer and his agreement with Venom was very out of character.
It must be really hard to spend time on comic book characters. They’re always so complex and when you clutter a movie with them something feels missing. In the horrible “Batman & Robin” too much time was devoted to the villains and the heroes were a second priority. Yet here, in “Spider-Man 3”, more time is devoted to the heroes. I prefer it that way and, with the exception of the underdeveloped Venom, our main characters had plenty of development and screen time to keep the overall story from losing the main idea: Revenge and “the battle within”.
Everyone is out for revenge in this movie and, because of this, many characters must confront themselves for their faults. It was clever to take this concept and apply it to characters other than Peter because it made everyone else so much more interesting. The end result was very appealing.
Not everyone will understand the humor to “Spider-Man 3”, which is okay. But to dislike the film solely because it’s cheesy is to dislike it for the wrong reasons. Raimi understands how the summer movies work. In an age where people try to present giant transforming robots “realistically”, Raimi understands that doing so is ridiculous. Some source material just shouldn’t be made realistically-- So why not have fun with it? “Spider-Man 3” dares to not wear a straight face and poke fun at itself when it so desperately needs to be poked.
In the end “Spider-Man 3” has its flaws, but none in the cheese department. These movies have always been cheesy, that’s part of their charm. The flaws lie in the inclusion of Venom and the underdeveloped concept of the villains. Otherwise Tobey Maguire plays the part just as well as he always has. The characters are tested even further and this self-parody of a movie ends in something of a post-modern tragedy. It’s not the best of Spider-Man’s adventures, but it sure is his most fun.
*** out of ****
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