Review for Spider-Man 3 (2 discs)

Introduction

"The power of geekdom compels you! The power of geekdom compels you!" That must be the reason I have Spider-Man 3 in my collection. Or is it that collector's urge that demands that once a series is begun, it has to be stuck with to the bitter end? Of course it could be that I just wanted to watch the film, to round off what was a very promising franchise, despite what I had read in the reviews and previews and on the Internet. It could also be that in a year of three-quels, I had two that I simply had to watch, while committing the least amount of effort in doing so, and having seen X Men 3 on television, but with no Spider-Man 3 scheduled, I felt a little justified in buying the DVD. It could be the fact that I found it in a supermarket bargain bin for less than the price of a rental. I have countless excuses, but no real reason as to why I have Spider-Man 3 in my collection. You may get from this introduction, a hint that Spider-Man 3 is not on my favourite films of all time list. Nothing could be closer to the truth.


For Peter Parker, life couldn't be better. He's in love with Mary Jane Watson, and vice versa. The world loves Spider-Man, and he's managing to keep down a job and be a student as well. But reality is about to bite in a painful way. His life may be great, but Mary Jane's career is on a downslide, and Peter is too wrapped up in himself to notice. Former best friend Harry Osborn wants to kill Peter/Spider-Man for killing his father Norman/Green Goblin, and Harry has just found his dad's secret lab full of Goblin gear. There's a new eager young photographer in town vying for Peter's job at the Daily Bugle, and Eddie Brock isn't beyond a few underhand tricks. An escaped convict named Flint Marko turns out to be the real murderer of Peter's uncle, and he's just wandered into a particle physics facility where a bunch of eggheads are zapping some sand. And a meteorite full of weird black alien goo randomly falls nearby when Peter and Mary Jane are on a date. The goo hitches a ride, and then infects Peter's Spidey-suit. Will all of this somehow come together into a coherent narrative? Do I actually care?

The Disc

Spider-Man 3 gets a 2.40 anamorphic transfer, which may just be the best of the three films, clear and consistently sharp throughout, great detail, and no problems with artefacts or print damage at all. The special effects are astounding, except for the Sandman CGI, which to me looks in no way realistic at all, it looks like what it is, software. Similarly, there is a pleasant selection of audio options, DD 5.1 English, DD 2.0 Surround English, and DD 5.1 English Audio Descriptive for people with impaired vision. The dialogue is clear, the action comes across well, and the surrounds get a punchy workout when the onscreen mayhem gets intense. Danny Elfman didn't return to score this movie, and it shows, with rather insipid and forgettable music keeping up with the action rather than driving it. The film gets plenty of subtitles.

Extras

Spider-Man 3 comes in an Amaray case with the second disc on a hinged panel, all contained in a card slipcover.

Disc 1 autoplays with a 'you wouldn't watch this movie if we tortured you' anti-piracy ad, which leads to the usual animated menus. On the disc you'll find trailers for Surf's Up, Vantage Point, Ghost Rider, and The Tudors, as well as a generic Blu-ray ad. There's also an ad for a remote control Spidey toy.

The film comes with two commentaries; the first is a Director and Cast commentary featuring Sam Raimi, Tobey McGuire, James Franco, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Thomas Haden Church, and Kirsten Dunst. You'd expect this many speakers to result in something of a free-for-all, but the track is pretty controlled, easy to listen to, and mostly pertinent to the film.

The second commentary is the Filmmaker's commentary with producers Avi Arad, Laura Ziskin, Grant Curtis, special effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk, and editor Bob Murawski. This is pretty dry, and from what I listened to, more of a state the obvious commentary track. Both commentaries are subtitled in English if you require.


Disc 2 also kicks off with the anti-piracy nightmare trailer, but compared to previous Spider-Man discs, the extras within are fairly pedestrian and run of the mill. There's no subtitle trivia track with the movie this time, and nothing as imaginative as the multi-angle featurette as in the last film.

It's divided into Special Features and Featurettes, with the Special Features offering 7 minutes worth of bloopers, some of them funny, a collection of galleries offering plenty of sketches, paintings, sculptures, special effects, and cast and crew photos, a music video from Snow Patrol, and an Ad Campaign hosting TV ads from around the world, and the movie trailers.

The featurettes look at different aspects of the film's production with input from the cast and the crew, and Spider-Man's creators, including the inimitable Stan Lee.

The villains are examined in Grains of Sand: Building Sandman (14 mins), Re-Imagining The Goblin (11 mins), and Covered in Black: Creating Venom (16 mins).


Hanging On… Gwen Stacy and the Collapsing Floor lasts 10 minutes and looks at how the skyscraper stunt sequence was realised. There are more looks behind the scenes, with 19 minutes looking at Fighting, Flying and Driving: The Stunts, 7 minutes looking at the fight sequence in the sewers of New York in Wall of Water, and two On Location featurettes, 13 minutes of New York - From Rooftops to Backstreets, and 7 minutes of Cleveland - The Chase on Euclid Avenue.

Tangled Web: The Love Triangles of Spider-Man 3 lasts 9 minutes and looks at the entanglements of Peter, MJ, Harry, Gwen and Eddie.

Inside the Editing Room lasts 4 minutes and shows how Bob Murawski and Sam Raimi used the storyboards and animatics to make the shooting of the film as efficient as possible.

Finally The Science of Sound looks at the music of the film, the sound mixing and the foley, and for that purpose, it is the sole featurette on the disc that is presented in 5.1 surround sound. This lasts 16 minutes.

Conclusion

Hmm, an emo Peter Parker, Saturday Night Fevering his way down a New York city street, much to the disgust of all and sundry. It induces a curious feeling in this reviewer. What is that sensation? It's the feeling of my rectum trying to crawl its way up my lower intestine. I had that feeling far too many times watching this film, and it wasn't just Tobey McGuire channelling John Travolta that did it. Trying to figure out what went wrong with Spider-Man 3 would take a full-blown forensics team, and months of analysis. I really don't want to devote even a fraction of that time and effort to this car-wreck of a film. But something of a collective amnesia and an attack of stupidity must have struck the filmmakers. I remember hearing in the commentary for Spider-Man 2 that they wanted to introduce Doc Ock in the first movie, but they didn't as it would complicate matters and distract from the Green Goblin. They also mentioned that they wanted to add more villains to the second, The Lizard, or maybe Venom, but again they didn't because it would distract from the Doc Ock storyline. Yet they forgot that reasoning, as in this one we not only get Venom, but also Sandman, and Goblin junior too.


I'd also like to know what Spider-Man 3's story is, although I'm not altogether convinced that it has one. It's more a case of stuff happens, most of it motivated by coincidence and plot contrivance, a collection of 'best bits' loosely connected by a few strands of narrative. It's as if the filmmakers had a checklist of stuff that they simply had to cram in. Sandman's origin, black suited Spidey, Venom, romance with MJ going off the rails, romance with Gwen, Peter wavering between good and evil, Harry becoming totally evil before being redeemed, it's all somehow crammed into 2 and a quarter hours, and they had to mush it up to make it fit, they mushed it up a lot. None of it would even be possible without the coincidences, but they are here in such profusion that it makes the mind boggle. The most mind boggling of all is that the meteorite containing the black goo just happens to land near Peter Parker and hitch a ride on his bike from there. Then escaped convict Flint Marko just happens to run from the police into a particle physics test facility. Flint Marko is actually the guy who killed Peter's uncle. Freelance photographer Eddie Brock knows who Flint Marko is, knows what motivates his criminality, and knows enough of how Spider-Man keeps thwarting him, that he convinces him to team up for the movie's finale. The guy shouldn't be a photographer; he should be a criminal psychologist! Don't get me started on Harry Osborn's timely amnesia. Seriously, amnesia? That was a movie cliché before movies were invented.


Spider-Man 3 is a disjointed mess of a film, there's no rhythm, no structure to it. It's a collection of some cool bits and many not so cool bits, rather than a coherent narrative, and that doesn't a movie make. It riffs off the earlier two films, echoing themes and ideas from them, but doesn't add anything new. Aunt May still grieves for Uncle Ben, Peter is still wishy-washy, Harry is still likeable creepy, MJ still simpers. Not even the Bruce Campbell cameo works here, which in the first two films were such breaths of fresh air. In fact, his appearance as a French maitre'd is another of those moments that gives me rectal gymnastics. This Spider-Man is a parody of itself. Someone once likened the Spider-Man films to the Superman films. Spider-Man, the origin of the character, Spider-Man 2, he gives up his powers for love, and Spider-Man 3, he faces his darker self. In terms of quality though, this is Superman 4 territory. When it comes to Spider-Man, Sony are already rebooting the property, and on the strength of this film, I can't blame them.


One mark for J. Jonah Jameson, who is still genius, and one mark for this film's action sequences, which even when motivated by a plot as dismal and threadbare as this, still take the breath away. But I really shouldn't have wasted that spare change on this disc.