(You probably know the drill by now. Though it should actually get finished Friday afternoon/evening. I’m pretty far along with it this week, just ran out of time, and (once again) have work Friday morning, dammit. It’s finished.

Here’s a wallpaper of panel 3 from last week’s comic. Just cuz I thought it was cool. – Virus)

Lothar-
So last Friday I went with my good friend Drew to the first showing of Spider-Man 3. I used to like Spider-Man comics and I quite like the movies, #2 being a personal favourite. I’ve had a week to think about it and I think I’m ready to go into a little bit of detail on my thoughts on the film. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!

The Good.

I liked the film up until a certain point, but more on that later. Sure there were some silly moments, such as Peter disco dancing down the street, and a lot of people were moaning about that and how out of character and off the wall it was. But to me that was the entire point of the scene, its Peter changing because of the contact with the symbiote and scenes like this show how his attitude is changing for the worse.

I also liked Thomas Hayden Church’s portrayal of the Sandman, and it’s nice to see a villain who isn’t a complete cunt, or doing it to feed his ego. He’s stealing money to try and save his daughter and he’s regretful of his actions through the entire film, but is constantly deciding to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Harry coming to terms with his father’s legacy is also very well done, but leaves something to be desired mostly because the filmmakers have to rush it.

I also liked Venom (, not Eddie Brock, but more on that soon), and he was portrayed pretty much as I expected. He’s the opposite of Spider-Man, evil, vicious, totally without morals and incredibly dangerous. My one regret is that he didn’t say “I’m going to eat your brains!” or something to that affect.

The Bad

While I liked the Sandman, can somebody PLEASE explain to me why every single villain Peter faces has to be linked to him somehow in these films? Okay, Green Goblin was a given since he’s always been his best friends father and you can’t exactly have Venom without him being connected to Spidey. I could swallow the tenuous link between Peter and Doctor Octopus, but did we really have to have Sandman be Uncle Ben’s actual killer? He couldn’t just be some guy could he? The only reason he’s in the film is so Peter can angst about it and eventually, forgive him for killing Uncle Ben (it was an accident and Sandman regrets it)…but this just bloody destroys the reason Peter became Spider-Man in the first place. Oh sure “great power, great responsibility” and all that but the reason Peter became Spider-Man is that he’s wracked with guilt over his actions that led to Ben’s death. If he forgives the Sandman, he’s not wracked with guilt and doesn’t have a fucking reason to be Spider-Man anymore!

Angst, angst, angst, relationship problems, and more angst.

Three stories for one movie is far too many. I think #3 would have benefited more from focusing on either the Venom story, or the whole Sandman/New Goblin thing, leaving the one left over for the fourth movie. Everything seems so rushed in this, they have to have Harry attack Pete, lose his memory, get it back, go angsty, and then forgive Pete once he learns the truth alongside with the whole Venom and Sandman thing. Despite the movie being three hours long there simply isn’t enough time to devote enough screen time to each story and have them feel truly fleshed out.

And why the fuck does Peter show his bloody face to EVERYONE in this movie again. Didn’t he get enough of that in #2?

The Ugly

Eddie Brock gets completed shafted in this movie. He’s on screen a total of fifteen to twenty minutes before he becomes Venom, and quite frankly he has very little in the way of motivation to want to kill him. Peter reveals that Brock’s photo is a sham, and Brock say’s because of Peter he’ll never work for a newspaper again. Then a little later he sees Peter walking with his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. However, I don’t think even Gwen knew they were dating so meh. This is ALL the motivation he gets for wanting Peter Parker dead, going so far to actually pray for God to kill him. Seriously, what the fucking hell? Perhaps if we got one or two more scenes showing how utterly down the toilet Brock’s life had gone, such as him getting kicked out of his apartment due to no money, or not being able to get hired, it would have made more sense. But no, Peter loses him his job and suddenly he wants God to kill him. It just doesn’t add up and quite frankly it doesn’t factor in that Brock may be unstable before it happens because we get no indication of that either.

The last half-hour of the film completely and utterly fell apart. They try and bring three separate stories together in one climatic battle and it just feels so utterly rushed that it comes off wrong. Because they had to tie up three stories none of them get a really satisfactory conclusion because just after you need to get over Venom’s death, you have to deal with Peter forgiving Sandman, and then deal with Harry dying. You don’t get any time to reflect on either conclusion at all before they have Peter and Mary Jane reconcile and the credits roll. I actually left the theatre disappointed at how unsatisfying and rushed the ending was. I think they just decided to end the movie early because the audience would be busting for a piss at the 3 hour mark (not me, I went during the Harry and MJ kiss scene since it was so predictable I knew what would happen).

Oh and why exactly did Sandman want Spider-Man dead? He stopped him taking some money sure, but he could have easily gotten more so it really doesn’t add up why he would join up with Venom to kill Spider-Man.

But overall I enjoyed the movie. The action scenes were, as always, great fun but I feel it is the weakest movie in the franchise. I just wonder what they’re gonna do with #4 because I’m sure as hell sick of MJ and Peter having angsty relationship problems already. Look, when ever you two have problems either have sex or kill each other. Either scenario would be more entertaining than watching MJ cry for the 50th time.