Word: petered
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...question, this is one wet action movie. It sets a world's record for so-called tough guys shedding tears. Harry Osborn (James Franco) gets weepie over his father's death, and enraged at his belief that Peter was responsible for it; he vents his rage in the supervillain guise of the New Goblin. Before being transformed into the irradiated Sandman, Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), the recidivist hoodlum - and murderer of Peter's sainted uncle - goes all soft and moist as he clutches his young daughter's locket. Peter has a jewelry fetish too: his aunt has given...
...sensitive story in a male-epic genre - to dramatize feelings of angst and personal betrayal worthy of an Ingmar Bergman film, and then to dress them up in gaudy comic-book colors - is to pull off a smartly subversive drag show. With, yes, 25 mins. of fabulous fights. Peter's tussle with Sandman, and his aerial battle with the supersonic skateboarding New Goblin, are plenty snazzy. But anyone can do that; in action movies, everyone has done that. What's better, in a threequel, is rethinking the characters, the franchise and the genre...
...Spidey 3, Peter is starting to fall in love with his reputation. It's not enough that he save people; he must be seen saving them. "They love me!" he cries with a dawning pleasure. Celebrity is this superhero's cocaine. The headlines are the high - that, and the attentions of ultra-blond trophy girl Gwen (Bryce Dallas Howard). The "something from outer space" Stewart referred to is really just an expression of the inner conflict between the old and new Peter. "Who are you?" Mary Jane demands, and Peter honestly replies, "I don't know...
...What he does know is that he feels a rush in the black suit he never got in the red one. Problem is, Peter is still enough of a nice kid that he can't quite pull off the attendant arrogance. When he combs his hair forward, he's still a dweeb, not a dude. When he tells a villain, "I guess you haven't heard I'm the sheriff round these parts," he's still geeky-gawky, closer to John Mayer than to John Wayne. His attempt at gangsta swagger doesn't cut it either. There's a weird...
...Spider-Man 3 isn't very up-to-date either; indeed, it's defiantly anachronistic. Black-Peter is fond of 40s jive talk ("Now dig this") and antique hipster choreography. Mary Jane, who harbors the outmoded ambition to be a Broadway musical star, sings a ballad ("They Say It's Wonderful") from Irving Berlin's 1946 show Annie Get Your Gun. The film's main emotional points are loyalty to your parents, or parent figures, and fidelity to your friends - the lessons of the uber-square Andy Hardy movies from the 40s. And Spidey 3, like the first film...