Saw Spider-man 3 last night, and much of what I predicted about it turned out to be true: It's basically an overstuffed thrill machine with a few lovely grace notes. Those fleeting bits are what break your heart about this enterprise, because they make you realize not only is this not the movie you want to watch, it's likely not the movie Sam Raimi would like to make.
Mostly it follows the standard blockbuster playbook, with some seriously lazy plotting and a typical reliance on CGI and hyperkinetic editing. In fairness, the CGI isn't convincing, exactly, but at least it's less cartoonish in appearance than the first two films. And despite the frantic cutting in the action scenes, Raimi at least knows how to stage the action--you can always tell what's going on.
Much time seems to be spent on character development, but the writing strands the poor actors with nothing to do, and Tobey Maguire gives the worst performance of his career. Thomas Haden Church brings some real poignance to his part as the main villain (Yes, main villain--this movie has way too many evildoers.), but he's not given enough screen time--it's as if they were afraid he'd hijack the movie and be more interesting than the hero. Other good actors, like Dylan Baker, James Cromwell and Teresa Russell, appear for a minute or two at most. It's good to see them, but why are they even there?
(Baker's part is particularly thankless--he's a science professor who appears only to explain the nature of the movie's dumbest plot device, an alien goo that brings out Spider-man/Peter Parker's "dark side". I was reminded of Glynn Turman's role in Gremlins, as a science teacher who appears to explain the nature of the title critters. Director Joe Dante hilariously sent up a ridiculous movie convention in Gremlins; Spider-man 3 plays this hoary trope straight.)
Those grace notes I mentioned earlier? Two brief, perfectly realized comedic scenes. One occurs in the offices of New York's slimiest newpaper, The Daily Bugle, and is sharply written and staged, and shows off brief, perfect turns by Elizabeth Banks, Ted Raimi and the peerless J.K. Simmons. The other is set in a high-toned French restaurant and showcases Raimi's old Evil Dead compadre Bruce campbell as a maitre'd with an outrageously phony accent. This scene, in which Peter Parker attempts (and fails) to propose to his long-suffering girlfriend, is initially played for laughs, and spirals into melodrama--and Raimi's touch is light as air, the farcical elements enhancing the poignant ones, making it richer, more fully realized than anything else in the film.
These scenes are reminders that Raimi is a sometime cohort of Joel and Ethan Coen, and one suspects he wishes he had a career somewhat like theirs. Somehow he became a creator of blockbusters, not the oddball comedies he would be ideally suited for. His next project will be telling--does he keep going for the easy green, or does he reclaim possession of his soul?
