Spider-Man 4, September 1963, 1st appearance of
"The Sandman".
The Green Goblin killed Gwen Stacy (the blond, upper
left, and as portrayed rather uncannily by Bryce Dallas Howard, below) in
Amazing Spider-man #121, June 1973. In the films, he's already dead and
she's just been introduced.
Harry Osborne as "The Green Goblin", September
1974.
Eddie Brock, "Venom", 1st appeared in Amazing
Spider-man #300. Here's a memorable cover appearance by Todd McFarlane from
issue #315, June 1989.
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Spider-Man 3 reunites all of the major players from the previous two
installments in this wildly successful franchise: Sam Raimi is back in the
director’s chair, Kirsten Dunst returns as Mary Jane Watson, and Toby
McGuire reprises his role as the wall-crawler. The critics and fans have been
very kind to this particular comic book adaptation. Most of the parts are
well-cast, particularly McGuire as Spidey’s alter-ego Peter Parker and J.
K. Simmons as irascible Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson. Dunst, for my
money, is nowhere near the out-and-out knockout the role of M.J. requires,
but her acting chops are fine and this can be dismissed as a quibble.
What does bother me about Raimi’s treatment of the entire franchise is
the inappropriate tone he utilizes throughout. Christopher Young’s grand,
somewhat menacing score, combined with Production Designers J. Michael Riva
and Neil Spisak’s dark and gothic New York City, are much too evocative of
Tim Burton’s “Batman” films. Spider-Man has always been rock and roll;
bright, fast, stripped down, no-nonsense. Although the pathos inherent in
the stories would seem to indicate a big, dramatic treatment, the opposite
is true: the lush melodrama telegraphs the rather simple-minded themes and
plot developments. What is dramatic and touching in a comic book becomes
one-dimensional and even ludicrous on film. As the filmmakers move beyond
Stan Lee’s original and powerful dramatic framework (“With great power
comes great responsibility”) to sow thematic territory of their own, the
result is even less substantive.
As with the recent “The Fantastic Four, The Rise of the Silver Surfer”,
the film-makers have chosen to blend storylines taken from several
different Marvel comic books dating back to 1963: the introduction of the
villain “The Sandman”, Harry Osborne’s (James Franco) replacing his father
as “The Green Goblin”, and the Todd McFarlane “Venom” arc, which gave us
Spidey in a black costume. There is a serious attempt to tie them together
thematically, but the short shrift subsequently given the actual characters
fails to properly support the intertwined plotlines.
As the film opens everything is going (uncharacteristically) well for
Peter Parker: NYC has a love affair with Spider-man, Pete’s in love with
MJ, and he is planning to ask her to marry him. But is he ready? Aunt May
(Rosemary Harris), in what may as well have been broadcast as one of the
movie’s BIG THEMES, warns Peter that a husband must be ready to always put
his wife first. No sooner does Pete declare himself ready to do this than
MJ starts whining about her career and accusing PP of not being there for
her and blah, blah, blah. Look, I’m not insensitive to the insecurities of
others, but the guy seemed to be being genuinely supportive. The whole
thing comes off completely manufactured and unbelievable, in what becomes
something of an unfortunate pattern for this film.
While out on a date with MJ a parasitic alien escaped from a flaming
meteorite attaches itself to Pete’s scooter, and follows him home. This
substance will eventually bond with it’s host and magnify the host’s
natural characteristics, particularly aggression (or so says Professor
Connors, the expert Pete takes a sample to). More about that later…
Meanwhile, in plot thread two, new evidence suggests that an escaped
con named Flint Marco (Thomas Hayden Church), who, zapped by some kind of
rays in a pile of sand has become the super-villain “The Sandman”, was
actually the guy behind the death of Pete’s kindly old Uncle Ben. This
Sandman, unlike the comic book version, has a dying daughter in need of an
expensively out-of-reach operation. This adds some dimensionality to a
rather under-developed character, but unfortunately the device is about all
the character is given, and the daughter is all but forgotten once no
longer needed. Spider-man, feeling a little more emotional thanks to the
black tar parasite (Venom), seeks revenge.
He perfunctorily hunts Sandman down and defeats him (so
perfunctorily that his later return is beyond expected). Enter Aunt May with
BIG THEME TWO: “It’s not for us to decide who lives or dies, revenge can
turn us into something ugly” (or something like that).
In plot thread three, Harry Osborne is back and looking for a little
revenge of his own. He doses himself with his Dad’s Green Goblin serum and
attacks. Fortunately, a bump on the head induces some convenient short-term
(as it unsurprisingly turns out) amnesia, and “Good Harry” returns. The
reason I say “Good Harry” is because the change is beyond ludicrous. He’s
warm, cuddly lovable… I swear there’s a rainbow above him and a bluebird on
his shoulder. That the filmmakers are not exactly trading in subtlety is a
supreme understatement.
If that sounds like a lot, it is… but there’s more. Lot’s more. It’s
like Raimi was afraid that if he actually dawdled on a single emotion or
development for more than 10 seconds he’d lose us.
Needless to say, Pete learns his lessons, is forgiven by everyone,
forgives everyone (actually saying “I forgive you” to Sandman),
defeats Venom (That 70's Show's Topher Grace; not bad), the Goblin, and The
Sandman, and takes MJ’s hand in loving anticipation of “Spider-Man 4”. It
doesn’t add up to much. The action scenes from the first two films are not
expanded upon. In fact, the most interesting effects are the Sandman
scenes, and they aren’t much different than stuff we’d already seen in “The
Mummy” (what was that, about 10 years ago?). Peter’s duality is signified
by his combing his hair down and doing disco moves to girls in the streets
of NY (really-I’m not making this up), and Harry’s duality is so broad that
we never have any idea what we’re supposed to feel about the character.
He’s been in all 3 films and it’s like he’s 2 separate characters, creating
no dramatic tension whatsoever. Did Raimi expect us to like him, hate him,
like him, hate him… and then actually care about his fate? What. Ever.
The film does actually build up some weird kind of grandiose energy
toward the end, and the large stable of appealing performers makes the film
very watchable. Bryce Dallas Howard is a gorgeous Gwen Stacy, and I could
watch Elizabeth Banks (here, a scene stealing Betty Brant, on
"Scrubs", the mother of J.D.'s child) do her taxes. What the film
doesn’t bother to provide is an engaging narrative or anything to actually
feel. The story is needlessly busy (“complex” would be giving it too much
credit), and the plotlines (or the
filmmaker) don’t allow the characters to inhabit the story so much as get
pulled along by it. It’s point A to point B to point C. I ended up back at
point “A”- for “apathetic”.
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