Spiderman 3

The first of this Summer's Movie Blockbusters is Spiderman 3 but will it be the best one?

Sort of following on from the first two films, with a little bit of back story rewriting to make things fit we now see Peter and Mary's relationship going through a difficult patch (actually, wasn't that the first two movies too) whilst we have 3 new bad guys for him to deal with.

First up is Sandman, a guy who is made of sand (like, durrrrrrrr). Hobgoblin (not made of hobs), the son of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin character who is also Peter Parker's best friend, and finally we have Venom a black goopy alien that takes over one of Spidey's suits, turning the web slinger into a bad moody version of himself when he wears it.

So, its quite a mess of characters and so the film comes in close to 3 hours. Signs that movie audiences want more for the bucks. Years ago you would have been happy with one goody and one baddy but now we have reams of both.

The acting throughout is pretty atrocious, wait til you see Peter's crying scene. It got the biggest laughs of the entire film. Kirsten Dunst's singing is clearly provided by someone else, no wonder she kept getting the sack from the big gigs. In fact it may have been more than one person as her voice is noticeably different each time she sings. The worst acting comes a rubbish butler that makes Alfred in Batman look brilliant, oh and some of the extras in the background. Watch the woman on the stage to the left of the woman who calls Spiderman down to the key to the city ceremony. The best acting is actually the dude who plays the Sandman, you can really see the emotion in his face and feel the pain that he's in (his reason for being a baddy isn't the normal bad guy stuff). They must have thought long and hard about how to switch Peter from "happy Pete" to "venom driven moody Pete" but couldn't they have come up with something better than combing his hair up (happy) and down EMO style (moody). That is pretty much all they did.

The effects are top notch and they've done an amazing job bringing the Sandman to the screen, even if he does look a bit like a grit covered Staypuft Marshmallow man at the end. Some of the swooping and flying stuff is a bit nauseating as they show off how they can move virtual cameras around the sets.

But there are so many mistakes in the film I managed to spot immediately that shows they really didn't try hard to put this film together. Here's a quick list of the ones I remember.

When in EMO mode Peter's hair often changed between shots. Watch for the scene where he's chatting with Harry at the balcony door before they fight for an example.
In the final sequence Venom rips Spidermans mask off and drops him, yet when he lands the mask is back on.
Why was a lorry load of sand parked in the middle of New York and how coincidental was it that it just happened to be the vehicle that Sandman ran behind?
They make a joke of Mary Jane's answerphone and how she says the beep, but this is missing the second time we see the phone ring?
How come the Sandmans pendant survived the demolecularisation process?
We see that the Sandman dissolves when wet so how come he's able to cry?
When planning to team up how did Venom know that Sandman had a sick kid?

Overall the film isn't very good at all and I got a sense that the producers no longer have to try too hard to make the film good as the public will go and see it regardless; the downside to a successful franchise. At least you know what you're getting, as long as there are baddies from the comic book to use. What are the odds on Lizardman next?