Thirds

At long last, I have returned to the movie theater. I know you were worried, waiting anxiously over the absence of new cinema in my life. I appreciate your (pretend) concern. ;)

Spiderman 3 is a logical and stylistic continuation of Spiderman 2. (By the way, if you saw neither 1 nor 2 or are just a bit shaky on what happened last, watch the credits and you'll get all the necessary plot events from parts 1 and 2.) In part 3 we find Spiderman has been embraced by the city and attained hero status; even the cranky newspaper editor is dragged into giving praise to Spidey's heroic efforts. What ought to be even better for Peter Parker (Spiderman) is that he can now be honest with his love, Mary Jane Watson, about his alter ego life. Alas Peter gets a bit too drunk on hero worship at the same time M.J.'s promising stage career takes a turn for the worse. She finds a ready listener in old friend Harry, who harbors a grievance with Peter/Spiderman going back to movie 1. Added to all this are several new and in some ways nuanced bad guys: a thief who becomes a sandman and a competitive photographer who is consumed by aggression due to a body-covering alien symbiote (you read that right). But really Peter/Spiderman's greatest enemy in this movie is himself.

On the good side Spiderman 3 makes sense from beginning to end, with a mix (albeit jumpy) of light and serious moments a la part 2. Peter Parker is in a funk but he's as likable as ever (though the black eyeliner and floppy bangs on Maguire during Peter's dark phrase really didn't work for me). On the downside, there were few truly dramatic moments. I never got the sense Spiderman was really in danger, even though he was in very dangerous situations. There seemed to be too many characters and subplots at a few points in the film, even though all were logically incorporated. Finally, the movie felt long to both David and I. So I recommend S3 to those who have been following along if for no other reason then because it is a logical extension of the story. But for someone just arriving at the franchise or with lukewarm feelings about S2 (which was a good fun action/romance movie in my opinion), I hate to say it, but you won't miss anything if you skip this film.