Spider-Man 3

Spider-man 3 has three villains, or 4 if you count Spider-man's own dark side. I thought this would be confusing, and doubted that a 2-hour movie could give any of the villains enough time to be more than cookie-cutter bad guys. I was wrong. The script cleverly draws on important themes from the previous two films to flesh out the 3 villains and give them arcs that span not only the whole film, but even connect with the first two Spider-man films, creating a sort of trilogy.

I read a quote from Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane) saying that it would be hard to have a Spider-man movie without her and Tobey MacGuire (Spider-man/Peter Parker). Whether or not this is true, both actors turned in excellent performances in this film. Aided by strong supporting players, including James DeFranco, and Rosemary Thomas, this summer blockbuster, comic-book action film actually had a number of strong emotional moments!

Spider-man is a fun action hero who we enjoy watching because he kicks bad-guy butt. He has also been very morally upright from the very beginning, a characteristic that is of unprecedented significance in this third film. As I said, one of Spider-man's enemies is himself, skewed towards evil by an alien substance he encounters. This film takes the time to thoroughly explore "dark Spider-man", but it never celebrates the depths to which he has fallen, (in spite of some funny moments). At his lowest point, Spider-man's behavior is almost sickening. It is therefore a huge relief when the film turns around and thoroughly redeems our fallen hero. We not only admire Spider-man for doing good, but hope that we too can have the strength of character to reject evil in our lives.

Packaged around the emotional moments and redemptive themes, Spider-man is still a piece of mass-market entertainment. I was a little frustrated that they had to spell out ev-er-y plot con-nec-tion in 4th-grade level detail. The film made excellent use of flashbacks, incorporating footage from the first two films, as well as new scenes of back-story, but it was too heavy-handed, as though the filmmakers didn't believe we were capable of remembering the first two films or understanding a complex plot.

Spider-man 3 is a strong film that takes everything (good and bad) from the first two films and does it bigger, better and more meaningfully.