Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Spider-man 3 has broken the record for largest opening weekend ever (at least for now), and I was part of that achievement. I like to think of it as being part of a class action lawsuit, only in reverse. In a class action lawsuit, something bad happens to a group of people, they suffer through a drawn out judicial experience, and ultimately come away with a financial reward that amounts to twenty dollars once split among all aggrieved parties. When viewing Spider-man 3, you pay about twenty bucks after snacks, suffer through a drawn out theatrical experience, and ultimately something bad has happened to a group of people. Mild spoilers ahead.

The plot is all over the place. There are three, maybe even four movies crammed into a space that is only large enough for one and a half. Your villains are the Sandman, Venom, and Harry Osborn (he’s not really on that floating snowboard long enough to call himself the Green Goblin, and I refuse to refer to him as the New Goblin). Don’t forget the Peter/MJ relationship issues that dominate the plot.

So all these different stories are vying for time, and no one gets enough of it. Peter’s shiny new black suit doesn’t turn into Venom proper until the movie is practically over. Flynt Marko’s motivation for trying to kill Spiderman is totally insufficient, and when he finally exits the movie you feel like you barely know him. Don’t even get me started on the ridiculous contrivances that turn Harry Osborn from villain to amnesiac good boy to villain to last minute hero. Peter and Mary Jane’s relationship trouble is supposed to be the glue that pulls these stories together, but it just drags the plot to a halt.

Flynt Marko’s initial transformation scene, the one where he slowly, sadly rises up from the dust as a half-dead monster, is probably the best storytelling in the whole movie. Unfortunately, it never gets any better than that for anyone, particularly Marko. Why is his daughter dying? Why, specifically, does he think killing Spiderman is the best solution to the problem? The plot essentially stops developing him as a character the moment after it creates him. Instead, the movie tries to force Marko’s significance by awkwardly retconning him into the first Spider-man.

Am I taking this movie too seriously? I don’t think so. A three hundred million dollar picture that runs two and a half hours should be a lot better than this. Case in point: the Jazz Room scene. You know the one I’m talking about. Peter’s been freshly Venomed and is acting all emo because Mary Jane broke his heart (she conveniently failed to mention that she was put up to it when Harry threatened their lives). So he takes out Gwen Stacey for a little revenge on Mary Jane, who’s been reduced to a singing waitress position after a disastrous run on Broadway (are you still with me?). The ensuing mess clumsily mixes comic relief with what is supposed to be the emotional climax of the movie. I kept seeing Jim Carrey in green face paint zipping around the room. I don’t know much about Spiderman, but I know that Venom is not The Mask.

This thing has way too much going on, and everything gets diluted in the process. None of the new characters gets enough camera time for you to care about them by film’s end, and Venom, who by all rights should be totally terrifying, just isn’t. When Harry is giving the Villian Brow to his father’s ghost, you will either cringe with discomfort or laugh your head off. You’d think his butler would have dropped that incredibly important information about Norman Osborn’s death and saved Harry a lot of trouble and facial disfigurement. I submit that the real villain in this movie is, indeed, poor communication.