Spider Man 3

Just went to IFC to go see Spider-Man 3 with one of my former lab mates who is in town this weekend on business (since pretty much everyone else was busy or out of town).

Like Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, it was pretty good! I'm not sure if I'd say it was better than them (Spider-Man 2 is pretty hard to beat, thats for sure), but no matter what, definitely better than any Batman or Super-Man movie, thats for sure. (creepy gay jesus stalker Super Man!)

I won't give any spoilers or try to summarize the plot for you guys, since i think this is the kind of movie everyone's eventually going to see regardless of whether I entice you with a poorly crafted summary. Some people will see it for the action only, others like me who are fans of the comics will enjoy seeing the stories of their childhood brought to life...

CG wise its pretty good, but like first two, i felt like the CG on swinging-around spider man is still a bit fake and plasticy looking. The CG on the villains was pretty impressive in many scenes, especially on Venom, but a few stinkers still crept in here and there.

All the actors do a pretty good job with their rolls and like the previous ones, they inject a lot of humor into the story in random spots. It almost feels like too much of a shift in gears at times - Bizarro Peter Parker scenes are a bit surrealistic, but entertaining, and J.J. scenes are a little over the top, but thats ok, its fun and its only a comic book movie.

The main complaint I had while watching it was that it felt like they were trying to cram too much into one movie... there were basically 3 different super-villains all aiming for Spider Man over the course of the movie, but they did pull it out in the end by finding a way to combine most all the various sub-plots into one finale.

Comics faithfulness wise - as probably few of you know, the way that Spider-Man found his symbiotic doppleganger was completely different in this movie than in the comics... which makes sense given that 'Secret Wars' and 'The Beyonder' are completely impossible to include in a movie like this, but still it felt like it just showed up with little explanation, investigation or even back story. I appreciate the fact that they tried to be more faithful to the comic in the representation of the Sand-Man, but in reality sticking him in the exact same 1960's villainous street thug stereotype attire in a 2007 modern film is a bit out of place:

"Hi I'm Lowell the airplane Mechanic from Nantucket!"

Likewise Peter Parker's version of reality seems a bit out of date... this guy is apparently the smartest kid in his university, a wiz at particle physics and what not, but he doesn't own a cell phone... he still develops film pictures in his bathroom sink. They need to modernize the characters a bit for the film or try to create a retro atmosphere rather than making it modern day realistic for everyone except for peter parker.

Ok enough rambling... the movie was good, action was good, I enjoyed 'bizarro peter parker the pimp' the most. :-P

8/10!