Bruce Campbell stars in new Sam Raimi film! (with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst)
Written: May 05 '07 (Updated Oct 10 '07)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Bruce Campbell delivers another fine performance.
Cons: Didn't live up to the hype or the first two.
The Bottom Line: Spidey is back, and this film was good, but not quite up to the hype.
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| shopaholic_man's Full Review: Spider-Man 3 |
B-list actor Bruce Campbell hit the screen again in the highly anticipated movie by his college friend Sam Raimi, Spider Man 3. In this film, Campbell stars as a french Maitre d' at an upscale french restaurant. A young photographer, Peter Parker (Toby McGuire) (who is apparently also a super hero named Spiderman) comes into his restaurant with a very special date with his long time girlfriend Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). Parker shares with the maitre d' his special wishes to propose to M.J. Bruce shines as the maitre d' with his faux french accent and arranges to take the ring and sneak it into M.J.s glass of champagne, and bring over the champagne when Parker signals him. However, Campbell observes the Police chief's (James Cromwell) daughter, Gwen Stacey (Bryce Dallas Howard) come over and flirt with Parker. M.J. is clearly very upset with this. Campbell and his staff try to come over several times to deliver the champagne and wedding ring to the young man. I won't tell you how it ends, but Bruce Campbell did an excellent job.
Much of the film however, doesn't revolve around the star, Bruce Campbell, but the exploits and adventures of Peter Parker a.k.a. Spiderman. My son and I watched the sold out show on opening night and overall we were quite satisfied, He loved it, and I thought it was good. However, with sequels and third installments, we cannot help but compare with the previous films. Spiderman was great, Spiderman II was one of the best comic book hero films I have seen on screen, so I couldn't help but measure this film against the first two.
In this third of the series, Parker wants to marry M.J. and has a new villian to face, Sandman. Harry Osborn, Jr. is still angry about his father's death, and begins to use his father's Green Goblin gadgets. A new reporter has come to the Daily Bugle to try to steal Parker's job. To make matters more interesting, a strange alien matter has bonded with Peter Parker, bringing out greater powers, but also some alarming character traits in our hero.
So without giving away any more the plot, let me describe a bit of what you are in for.
The Action! Spiderman is first and foremost an action film. When you have superheroes and supervillians, you can count on the fact that their should be a lot of action. There is, but I have to tell you, the action scenes didn't GRAB me like the first or second film. Some of it was shot too frenetically, and I didn't really get the full scope of the action because of the way it was shot. Spidey faces off against, not one but Three villians in this movie, Venom, Sandman and Green Goblin, Jr. Although a couple of the scenes were well done, I would only give the action a 3.
The Humor One thing I really love about the franchise is the humor that is put into it. I will say this, Spidey 3 has some hilarious scenes. When the venom first changes his suit to black, both Parker and Spidey change into someone darker. Parker changes into some sort of cross of a goth and a preppy, wearing black, doing John Travolta like dance steps down the street, and in one scene acting like Jim Carrey in The Mask. Look for another cameo by Spiderman creator Stan Lee too! I would give the humor in this film a 4, it doesn't quite match some of the best scenes in Spiderman II, but it holds its own.
Heart The other thing I love about Spiderman is the heart. I got a real feel that Peter Parker struggles a lot with issues of being a superhero and balancing that with his personal life. In this film, Parker doesn't seem to have matured, but actually regressed into a rather egocentric jerk. I don't know how much of that was due to the venom/black suit or how much popular opinion had just gone to his head. However, I didn't really care as much for the rather thoughtless Parker here, he seemed more one dimensional than he did in the previous two films. Heart only gets 2 stars in this film, I didn't "feel it" like in the first two of the franchise.
Acting Tobey Maguire still gives us a great spiderman, and it was hilarious to see his "dark side" in the film. The audience was laughing hysterically as Peter Parker's venomous side came out. Who knew symbiotic life forms loved Saturday Night Fever? Kirsten Dunst is beautiful and charming as always. James Franco continues to shine in his troubled role as Harry Osborn, Jr. In fact his character actually showed really good development here. Ron Howard's daughter, Bryce Dallas didn't have a lot to do as the perky police chief's daughter, but she did what she could with the role.
The new villians were the most interesting. Thomas Hayden Church (Sideways played Sandman, and he actually was able to show a troubled conflicted villian who underneath all the wrong choices actually had a good heart. Church was actually able to pull this off. Topher Grace (That 70's Show was pretty funny as Eddie Brock, the new hot shot reporter, out to steal Parker's thunder.
Overall Thoughts My son and I enjoyed Spidey III, but I can't give it the easy five stars I gave II. Perhaps it was the anticipation or the hype, but for me, it didn't quite live up to what I was expecting. Yes, I enjoyed it, but I didn't get "caught up" in it like the first films. The humanity didn't shine through like it used to, and the action scenes didn't stun me like before. I don't want to see my favorite comic franchise to go the way of the Batman movies did after Tim Burton left and before Christopher Nolan started it over. I tended towards 3 1/2 stars, but I have rounded it up to four, because my son really loved it. It was an enjoyable film, I can't point out any major flaws in it, I can only tell you that it didn't quite measure up to its predecessors.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Action Movie
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