![]() ![]() Raimi sets out to create - and largely achieves - a finite resolution with 'Spider-Man 3.' Granted, some of the moralizing of the film's final ten minutes is a bit ham-fisted, but unlike so many cynical comic book adaptations with endings that seem designed to ![]() The film is pure comic book, and when Raimi hits those fantastic peaks, the achievement is breathtaking.Įven better (and rare for a blockbuster franchise that's still raking in the coin), His camera zooms, spins, swoops and does loop-de-loops, bouncing his characters around as if they have steel for bones. The age of computer-generated imagery has clearly liberated him from the shackles of the practical effects limitations of his 'Evil Dead' days, allowing him to completely ignore the laws of physics to great effect. I can't say that I was ever anything less than entertained by 'Spider-Man 3.' Raimi continues to amaze with the sheer child-like exuberance Still, even if I longed for the less frenetic pacing of the earlier installments, On top of that, the film is capped off with an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink climax that's so dense it requires cheesy fictional news reporters to narrate it. Over the course of the film's run time, poor Spidey must defeat both Sandman and Venom, work through two different love triangles, repair his broken relationship with Harry, solve the backstories of both the Green Goblin and his own dearly-departed pops, battle his dark side, and tie up all the loose story threads of the first two movies. To be sure, the accusations of narrative clutter leveled at 'Spider-Man 3' are completely valid. Perhaps that's why, despite its gargantuan $900 million worldwide haul, 'Spider-man 3' remains a disappointment in the eyes of many fans and critics. As the director made very plain in those jittery pre-release interviews, the fact that Venom is in the movie at all is solely because the fans wanted to see the character so bad that it was mandated by the studio. Indeed, watching the film today, in a story overloaded with characters and villains and love triangles and mysterious backstories, it's immediately clear that Raimi put his true heart and soul in the misunderstood, tragic Sandman. When the film finally hit theaters, following months of trailers indicating that Venom was the film's star villain, fans and critics alike were left with a strange, underwhelming feeling that they'd just seen the wrong 'Spider-Man 3.' ![]() Rather than professing a love for the film's top villian, fan-favorite Venom - a black, goopy creation of the comics that brings out Peter Parker's "dark side" - Raimi seemed more interested in the Sandman, a character that few die-hard Spidey fans were eager to see hit the big screen. As the pre-release marketing juggernaut for 'Spider-Man 3' started to kick into high gear earlier this year, director Sam Raimi began giving a series of surprisingly candid interviews. Looking back, the warning signs were there fairly early on.
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