Spiderman 3 in Black and Why?

Category: Action  |  Tags: spiderman peter parker meteor hitler soul train action

posted by: ignatzmouse 604 days ago          

Following the superb first two installements, Spiderman 3 proved to be a cobweb of confusion. I can't remember more weeping in an action movie. It seemed like one character or another was bawling in every other scene, often Peter Parker. In my screening, it reached the point where the audience started laughing at poor Peter's infantile cry-baby face. You know it's not a good sign when the audience begins openly mocking the screen.

But the problems were numerous in Spidey 3. Spidey's well-marketed dark side consistently undercut the plot, becoming little more than comic relief. Peter parts his hair like Hitler, dances around the streets like a fool checkin' out the ladies, and tells people the hurtful, honest truth, and this is the entirety of his dark side? It was ridiculous.

Everything was off in this movie as if with its earlier deserved success everyone on the team became yes-men who couldn't voice a thought for coherency lest they alienate the geniuses of the gravy train. When monstrous villains are leveling the city and smashing things to smithereens, why do crowds of people stand around beneath it all as if they were spectators being humored at a taping of "Battle of the Comic Book All-Stars?" I heard children wondering that very basic question. The gigantic pounding Sandman looked great on the screen, but you ain't going to stand under the dude and his flying debris going "neat-o."

The overwhelming irritation I had with the movie, though, was the lack of plausible rationale for *any* of the transformations. Time and again, it simply undermined the plot. Certainly, this disregard for the actual workings of the physical universe is to be expected in comic book based reality, and it was present to some degree in the first two pictures, but here it was reduced to throwaway devices to simply get the filmmakers to the desired special effects. As a premise, it assumes an audience intelligence level of drooling idiocy. Shiny object pretty. Wow. I take it as an insult.

A meteor hits within feet of Peter and his girl and it creates barely a thud. Sonic boom, schmonic boom. Said meteor is harboring some unexplained black organism that somehow survived the transit of space and the burn-up entry through the atmosphere, and it seems to be seeking out Peter for some unknown reason. But, it can only hitchhike and hold its breath for a couple of days. The filmmakers need it to hold off jumping on Petey until he is attired in his Spiderman costume so that it can be turned that cool, marketable black.

The escaped convict gets conveniently transformed into the Sandman by falling into some unexplained experiment in an open field that spins sand real fast. Whee! It makes me afraid to beat cake flour in a mixer -- God knows what might come out! Spiderman later defeats this Sandman by hitting him with a blast of water and washing him away. But wait! He's needed later, so once Spidey is gone the Sandman somehow reconstitutes out of the water that just disintegrated him.

Spiderman Blak visits the bell tower of a church for unknown reasons at the same time the guy from "That 70's Show" who isn't Ashton Kusher is at the altar feeling all down about the way Peter Parker pickled his [profanity removed] . The church bell starts ringing and causes Spidey's black tights to go berserk for unknown reasons. The bells! The bells! He promptly rips it off and some of their amorphous whatness drops onto the guy who isn't Ashton Kusher. As a result, he is transformed into an evil Spidey clone. Why the goo doesn't just turn his slacks black and make him dance around like a 1974 Soul Train dancer is never explained. It worked for Peter. Subsequently, this new dark Spiderman evolves a banshee head with needle teeth which again is never explained -- except that it looks good as a special effect. Those darned carbonaceous meteorites!

Time and again we are taken down a plot without rationale and we are expected to forgive it because everyone is crying and the special effects are nifty. I know this behemoth broke box office records over its first weekend, but it did so on the strength of two very good films, not on its own merits. They can put the box office in their belt, but they can also put it in their back pocket that they disappointed a record crowd and left them shaking their heads, a crowd that showed up because this *was* a franchise that bucked the toss-away nothing-but-special-effects formula. It's enough to make you cry.