Spider-Man gets a new suit, learns his uncle was killed by some guy who is now sentient sand, gets his best friend back after he loses his memory trying to murder him, and gets dumped by his girlfriend because he is too obsessed with being Spider-Man.
Spider-Man 3 has a reputation for being bad. While it is the weakest of the Raimi movies, I would put it above both the Garfield movies AND it pays off most of its arcs, unlike Far From Home.
The big problem with the movie is that it is crammed with subplots. There is a busy-ness to the number of plotlines which is exhausting, and it starts right from the beginning.
The film is also filled with embarrassing elements - the Jazz club scene; Peter’s hair change; Eddie’s introduction to Gwen’s dad (while she is hanging from the top of a building); the British reporter monologuing through the climax.
None of these elements is particularly detrimental on their own. But there is so much going on in this movie that these fumbles start to pile on each other.
To their credit, the filmmakers maintain their intent to give all the characters reasons for their actions, but there are too many storylines. Sandman’s plot is based around a theme of forgiveness that the film does not spend enough time on.
The one plotline with real juice is Peter’s relationship/conflict with Harry Osborne. And that is because we have spent two movies establishing their relationship and motivations. Ideally the movie would have just focused on the war between Peter and Harry, but I can see why they felt a need to escalate.
According to what I have read, Raimi wanted to include the Sandman and Venom was added by Avi Arad the producer. Ironically, on the page I think Venom and Eddie Brock make more sense in this movie than Flint Marko.
Marko’s storyline never truly fits - he is introduced as an additional element of Ben’s death, and then he kind of hangs around until Peter forgives him at the end. He has no real impact on the story.
Meanwhile, Peter dealing with the Venom symbiote is a great idea: Peter is always burdened by responsibilities and has a strong moral code. What would happen if he threw that all away? I do not like the way the storyline is developed, but it could have worked as a counter-melody to Peter’s conflict with Harry..
After the slow-burn of the previous two movies, Harry’s vengeance feels shortchanged - his amnesia is a contrivance to put him out of action while Peter deals with his other antagonists. It feels like at least two different movies talking over each other. Watching the movie often feels like channel surfing, as we jump from one plotline to the next.
I think there are a couple of good movies mixed in here, and I want to give the filmmakers credit for trying to pay attention to all the characters and themes, but there is too much going on for any of them to cancel each other.
It is frustrating because there is some potential dramatic meat here:
Peter and Mary Jane’s breakup is based around an understandable faultline - but it is obscured by unnecessary complications.
The need to keep all these storylines going means that there are some really contrived bridges between important shifts - the key one is the butler telling Harry the truth about his father’s death.
A personal gripe with the movie is that this movie feels less tactile than the previous entries. One of the pleasures of this re-watch was noticing how many physical effects there were.
Willem Dafoe and his stuntmen are being flung around on a real glider; Doctor Octopus’s arms are brought to life by puppeteers controlling physical arms. There is plenty of CGI, but the first two Raimi movies show how CGI can be used to augment and clean up tangible production elements. There is a charge to watching these effects because the performers are interacting with something real.
This is the first film in the franchise where you can feel the shift from physical production elements to fully CG - Flint Marko running from the cops looks like it was shot against greenscreen backdrops. With all the plotlines, the CGI adds to how ephemeral the movie feels.
Spider-Man 3 catches a lot of flack, but it is better than its reputation. This is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen - the need to force in so many characters while resolving existing plotlines results in a movie that is not terrible but it is exhausting to sit through.
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