Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: Peter Parker struggles to pursue a normal life while facing the dangers of being Spider-man.
Review: I may have been a bit lenient on my review of the first film, but I'm not going to be as forgiving this time around. With that said, for the love of Rika if I read one more review saying "Spider-man 3" was better than this I'm going to go super saiyan! I fucking LOATHE SM3 with a passion! Believe me, SM3's reputation for being complete and utter shit is well founded; a dancing Peter Parker...need I say more? Anyway, it's not that this movie is bad, but it feels shallow somehow. You have decent action and the pacing is perfectly fine, but the love story is bland, the villains felt forced, and things felt rushed despite the long ass running time. There also appeared to be no attempt to up the stakes when compared to the first film; nothing felt improved or refined to tell a better tale.
Let's go over what worked this time around. Spider-man, as well as, Peter Parker felt more like their comic book counterparts in this series than they did in the Raimi trilogy. I get the impression that this Peter is genuinely good at science and is intelligent beyond mentioning, in passing, that he is doing well in school. At the same time, the goofball nature to SM and Peter is maintained especially when battling the villains; a good example was him wearing the fireman's hat when knocking out Electro. The manner in which SM fights and carries himself is truer to how he should be. Another thing I definitely liked were the easter eggs scattered about the film that alluded to other villains and SM mythology; the ending scene is awesome for this! Also, does this mean they're trying to set Felicia up as Peter's next love interest? Hell, was that even meant to be the real Felicia? The pacing is great, as I mentioned, and you do not realize how long this movie truly is; they balanced action to drama well, but the quality of that drama and action is debatable. Finally, there were some good ideas on the direction to take the franchise, but I seriously hope they will be stepping up their game after this movie.
Alright, let's tear into this. The whole Peter and Gwen romance is terrible! Did we really need all this back and forth about "I love you," wait no, "I can't love you 'cause reasons." Plus, that cliched lovable stalker shit only works in the movies. I wish they had handled their relationship better considering it was well known ahead of time that Gwen was going to die. Speaking of which, I know it was supposed to appear Peter was sad for a long time, but it felt sort of shoehorned in at the end with Peter already over it. Connected to this problem is the rushed nature of all the other characters in the movie. They had the time to flesh out Electro more, but you can seriously establish everything you need to know from the trailer alone! He was a loser who idolized Spider-man until a freak accident gave him powers...then he's instantly an over the top supervillain just like that. As for Harry/Green Goblin...what were they thinking? Way to force a friendship plotline between Harry and Peter out of nowhere. Maybe it's me, but I need more than one scene establishing their friendship in order to take it seriously. In fact, everything about Harry was stupid right down to him magically being sick and his transition to a villain. These events should have filled their own movie and they further detract from Electro who was beaten extremely easily as it was. Then we have the drama with Peter and his parents...uhh, so now we are to believe some insanely improbable series of circumstances led to Peter becoming Spider-man?! And the funny thing is, this plot line of Peter coming to terms with his parents kind of went nowhere and did not contribute to the overarching story. More annoying for me was that Aunt May seems pointless and there is almost no mention of Uncle Ben. Honestly, there was too much going on that they should have divided up a lot of these ideas between two movies and there could have been potential for it to come off natural. Other than these glaring mistakes, there were still nuances that felt stupid like SM able to lift a car with ease; yeah, uhh no--maybe with the symbiote.
My hopes weren't exactly high for this movie, so I can't say I was disappointed, but I did think it would be better than this. There was a lack of focus and they tried to put too much exposition into one movie in order to already establish the next one. I get that they want a clear differentiation between this franchise and the last one, but, at the same time, you don't want to walk into the same pitfalls as that franchise. On the other hand, this film is nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be; it's actually decent and a good representation of the Spider-man character. It has the levels of entertainment you would expect from a superhero movie and does end on a strong note. If you're already a big SM fan, I think this will satisfy you, but it feels weaker than the last movie in numerous regards.
Notable Moment: At the end when we see various prototypes that greatly imply the Sinister Six are planned for the third film.
Final Rating: 6/10
No comments:
Post a Comment