A few reflections on Spider-Man 3
First time out, we got Peter Parker’s story. Second time, we learned more about Peter through MJ’s story.
This time, the story is about obsession and nemesis.
Late in the opening credits, an idyllic scene of shooting stars is interrupted by a close-up of a fragment that is heading toward the city with an ominous black hitchhiker. The fragment zooms past the Osborn building.
Picking up where we left him in SM2, Harry Osborn has fully earned his bat-shit crazy inheritance from Norman. He’s talking to dad all the time in the super-secret ninja Goblin Cave, and he has a particular aversion to all things spider, including some pumpkin-bomb remodeling when an arachnid “spy” crawls across the floor. Harry is also linked into a small but interesting para-human criminal database… and he clearly has a big plan.
Peter and MJ are a happy-but-poor couple. He’s in graduate school, free-lancing at the Bugle, and tutoring on the side. MJ is auditioning, doing some off-off-Broadway work, and is one of those singing wait-staff at a 50s diner. They are different people, and there are tensions but not problems. Pete has a lab-mate named Gwen, and MJ has a regular client named Brock, a blue-collar city-kid who also happens to be free-lance photographer at the Bugle. The conversations that Pete and MJ have with these simpatico acquaintances are in sharp contrast with the conversations that they have with each other.
In the meadow, the meteor cools. A set of black tendrils reach out to sample the space around it, taking on and coating a variety of things at random: a leaf, a piece of trash, a stone, a twig… a spider. In the next moment, a quite threatening black and toothy spider leaps to a neighboring web and devours its occupant. Black tendrils snake over the web itself, and we pull back slowly from this new, obsidian lair.
…
Sorry, no spoilers here.
This is NOT the movie that is showing on 4,252 screens right now and earning a bajillion dollars, euros, yen.
In the end, I liked many parts of this film, but I was lukewarm to tepid on the movie as a whole. A simple triumph of style over substance, the whole is far less than the sum of its parts. Movies with scenes, regardless of how spectacular, that can be shuffled into many different sequences (or simply left out) without changing the overall narrative always worry me because it generally means there is no coherent narrative at all. Everyone who says this about SM3 is correct, in my view.
The basic pieces of an interesting superhero movie sequel were there, but these rather ended up as a random pile of nice-looking bricks with some dirt mixed in and a big neon sign, up front, that flashes its directions to the crowd: laugh, cry, moan, sigh, worry.
And, I have to admit: yawn.
There were a whole bunch of choices that seemed sophomoric to me, when, even within the confines of the set of characters and basic motivations they used, a far more interesting and compelling story could have been told without compromising at all on the super-duper action.
Here is the rest of the movie that never happened.
…
Have the black goo get imprinted on spiders. Have the attraction to Pete follow that imprinting, then have (eventually) MJ carry the thing to Brock after Peter disconnects. Brock ends up being motivated by his interest in protecting MJ because he sees the interaction between Pete and Gwen and blows it out of proportion, particularly with MJ as his confidante.
Have Harry mainly in the background putting together what could eventually be the Sinister Six. I would have had Marko be the victim of an accident that turned him into an incoherent pile of sentient sand, and Harry as the one who managed to pull him together with Goblin juice or something.
Have a great fight between Spidey and the Sandman, but have the Sandman fail thanks to his inexperience (the whole washed away and it takes a while to come back trick), and end the movie with one of those old after the credits roll scenes: on a beach, where a little kid has built a sand castle, just for a moment, flickers an eye open in one of the windows (bwah hah hah).
It’s possible that after the defeat of Sandman, when SM is tuckered out, the Brock-for-MJ driven Venom makes his move. My theme here is the obsession and nemesis that comes through Peter being SM (Harry) and the obsession and nemesis that comes through him being Pete (Brock, driven by his interest in MJ). This is where Gwen in jeopardy would drive the fight, given that both Brock AND the suit now have it out for Peter.
Have that kick-ass fight between Harry and Peter as the climax of the film. I loved that whole scene and it came way too early. You don’t need to put anyone on jeopardy for this one. It is Harry versus Peter. In my version, the fight does not resolve at all. It does end when Harry accidentally harms MJ and it brings him somewhat, but only somewhat, to his senses, at least long enough to fly away for another day. “This fight is not over, Spider… not by a long-shot!”
Through all this, Pete and MJ realize their commitments to each other and he proposes.
Harry broods over the criminal view-screen that features the person who will become Electro. Click. Click. Keyboard. Harry mutters… “Not by a long-shot, Spider; not by a long shot.” Zoom in to the monitor and start to roll the credits on that screen.
Sandman, as I said earlier, blinks.
…
Instead… well, go see it for yourself.
