Why I Feel That the Spider-Man 3 Hate was Completely Excessive

I want to start out by saying that I think that Spider-Man 3 is almost exactly the film that Sam Raimi wanted it to be. Whether this is good or not depends on how much you like Sam Raimi; how much you like Spider-Man; and how much you're willing to let these likes conflict.

Spider-Man 3 isn't a perfect film. It's at times disjointed, it takes strong liberties with its characters' cannon, and, of course, Venom proper wasn't handled well at all. Perhaps the biggest - but least consciously recognized - issue that most people take with the film, however, is that the general atmosphere is just so much different from Raimi's past two Spidey entries. While Spider-Man 1 and 2 were very much movies about Peter Parker and the Spider-Man character, Spider-Man 3 is a love song to both the good and bad of comic books in general.

I picked up on this notion while trying to explain to my dad why I didn't think it was any near as bad as critics were saying after my first viewing of the movie. It was, and remains, my belief that Spider-Man 3 isn't any sillier or more contrived than the previous entries, it's just more upfront about it.

You see, comics are a medium with a history incredibly rich in melodrama, cliché, and archetypes. In Spider-Man 3, Sam Raimi embraces all of these traditions, from the amazingly melodramatic panning shot to Harry in the balcony at the theater during the opening scene to the manner in which the majority of the cast joined J.K. Simmons in playing perfectly into their characters' archetypes.

For better or worse, though, Peter and Mary Jane didn't seem to get the same face-lift, and their characters retention of their more "realistic" personalities tends to ruin the fast paced, highly entertaining, if generic, interactions of the rest of the cast. Having the two most critical characters in the film trying to portray real people amid a cast of one-dimensional clichés drags at the proceedings and makes the shift hard to recognize. It's for this reason that I would have liked to have seen more interactions between "evil" Peter and the rest of the cast, because it was only when Maguire was overacting and trying to milk what little material was given to this part of his character that he seemed to fit in with the over-the top melodrama of the rest of the film.

I don't believe that Maguire isn't primarily to blame for most of his issues in this regard. I think that, were the Peter Parker character written to more accurately reflect his comic book persona, Maguire would have had a much easier job of things. Unfortunately, Peter Parker was irreparably altered for the movies from a wise-cracking genius with some of the world's worst luck to a meek, introspective genius with some of the world's worst luck.

And yet, despite being this incredibly meek character, Parker needs to stand toe-to-toe with a bunch of larger-than-life personalities all focused on tearing him down. In a world of archetypes and walking clichés, a meek character can't do this and remain believably in the same world as the rest of the cast, or the illusion is broken. As the hero, he can't back down; but left without his wit and smarmy remarks as a verbal weapon to combat this personal oppression there's not much he can do to remain in the same one-dimensional reality as the rest of the cast.

Dunst played her part well enough when Maguire wasn't on the set, but when the two were together, things tended to fall back into the mood of the first two films; again causing a rift in the atmosphere in the film.

There's not a whole lot more that can be said about this aspect of the film. In trying to transplant the characters of the first two films into a largely different environment, the writers missed some key issues. Peter's inability to hold his own with the rest of the cast on their terms makes the flimsiness of the film's conceits more visible relative to its predecessors. This is unfortunate because upon multiple viewings, the films are all equally ridiculous and contrived, just in different ways.

Whether you're willing to forgive the flaw in favor of the goal is up to you. Generally speaking, I am, simply because it's not a new problem - I've been craving a truer-to-form Peter Parker from the beginning - and it's about time it bit them in the ass properly anyway. If Raimi, Maguire, and Dunst return for the fourth installment, maybe a Peter with a freshly bolstered sense of confidence will start to develop the proper attitude of his canonical self.

The other major problem that Spider-Man fans have with this film is Venom. Symbiote-Spidey was generally handled excellently, probably among the best parts of the film; Peter should have rid himself of the Symbiote, we should have seen it begin to attach itself to Brock, and that should have been it for Venom until the next film. Instead, we got a super villain that was completely untrue to cannon and did nothing to differentiate itself from Spider-Man in terms of movement and ability.

This is especially sad since this film showed that Raimi was finally up to the task of visualizing these character's abilities. The scene of Spider-Man rescuing Gwen from the crane accident showed the movement of Spider-Man as well as I think is possible. Sand Man, similarly, was incredibly well portrayed visually. Having Venom be as blah as he was was a huge disappointment, as watching a hulking Venom bound 5 stories through the air, pin Peter to a construction girder, and try to split Parker's skull open with his tongue to get at his brain would have been a real treat.

I don't know what else I can say. Spider-Man 3, for me, is a lot like [Star Wars] Episode 3 was. Every time I watched it, I became more forgiving of its flaws in favor of its root material. This doesn't mean that the flaws don't exist, but its charms are just more substantial. So, go watch it again when you get the chance (it's out of most theaters by now), and try to appreciate what Raimi was attempting to do. Maybe you'll enjoy the movie more now that you know what disappointments to expect, maybe you won't, but please stop the hate.

On one final note, I want to yell at those of you who are upset and think that Sand Man's origin was contrived. The afternoon before I went to see Spider-Man 3 for the second time, I swung by a local comic book shop with some friends. While there, my friend Peter picked up a Super Man comic. This particular issue involved a conflict between Supes and Bizarro. From the back of the Car, Peter made a comment as to how he'd forgotten that Bizarro had Ice Vision. Almost everybody in the car looked at him as if to exclaim, "Ice vision? How can he have ice vision?!" because, somehow, it was somehow more absurd than the heat vision we're all so comfortable with. Sand Man's origin as opposed to Spider Man's is exactly that same situation. Calling Sand Man's creation contrived is asinine when you're going to see your third Spider-Man film.

edit: I will admit that the convenient proximity of the testing facility is stretching things a bit, but seriously, just roll with it.