Spider-Man 3: Thoughts

Here’s a drinking game. Slide Spider-Man (the original) into the DVD player and take a drink every time Toby Maguire blinks. Seriously, try it and then get back to me… You should be hammered around…oh, the third viewing or so. A lot has been made about Maguire’s hair in the most recent Spider-Man (3) film, but if anyone wanted to see real acting, they’d focus less on the hair (after all, McGuire is no Tom Hanks), and instead on Maguire’s squint, out in full force for an (unfortunately) long middle period of the biggest blockbuster (weekend!) of all time. And sadly the rest of us can only shift in our seats as almost three hours of super-hero retro-camp unravels before out eyes, which is a shame because they had it so right last time. I guess that’s what having a Pulitzer Prize winning author in the story development process does. Rami, rather than vigorously setting the stage for future super-hero movies, seems to have slipped on a banana peel and ended up in the campy 70’s. I half expected a cameo of the Spider-mobile and Lauren Bacall wielding a eye-brow pencil. Script credits go to Rami and his brother (?!—which one, I can’t seem to keep all the cameos straight. Except for you Bruce—they’ll always be a place in my heart for you—get this guy a sitcom on the CW, for crying out loud), none of which is a good thing since Rami seems intent on rehashing antiquated (charming, sure—but cringe worthy in most aspects) 70’s comics. As for the cast: McGuire is as unblinking as ever, despite the fact that he’s given more “to do” in this film. It was the peepers that made McGuire great in the first two films, large marbles that seemed ready to burst from his skull at any moment (can anyone make themselves cry as well while only looking mildly constipated?). He was small and nerdish, but cute without the glasses—always a revelation to the girl-next-door. But he felt awkward. Our inde darling! The abortion orphan! The last guy who came closest to scoring oral sex with Katie Holmes! And there he was, in a big blockbuster—as Peter Parker? Of course he didn’t fit. But it worked, and he remains to this day a better choice than Jake Gyllenhaal. But once he puts on those black duds in a cabaret scene to end all drag shows (the result of alien possession, never really his choice), he can’t help but embarrass himself. One wonders why he didn’t protest—didn’t he have any script approval?—and I couldn’t help think that on some level in that scene, he was flipping off the audience; us desperate fools who’ve been waiting for a big movie and were fans of the previous films. Kirsten Dunst is of course beautiful if not a little too mousey in voice to be truly sexy, and, frankly, the reports of her augmented cleavage have somewhat deflated my appreciation of her performance. Someone told me Topher Grace was in the movie as a bad guy, but with that new (frosted) hairdo I could have sworn he was a dancer from Disney’s High School Musical. The tragedy of the forced third villain (of the third movie! Get it!), is that Venom is probably the only villain in the Spider-Man mythos not created by Stan Lee that has been able to stick and remain compelling. The black-costume-saga could have been a great movie, but apparently someone told Rami this after he started his film. Thomas Haden Church's Sandman is as layered and solid as shale, and I’ll admit to looking at his swollen chapped lips and thinking that those should be his special power. Scenes of note: The transformation of Marko into the Sandman is great. The plain-clothes fight with Harry Osborn at the beginning, sadly, raises expectations. Other than that it’s a wash. But let’s take a moment to praise James Franco. It’s fun watching someone who knows how to make scene chewing an exercise in good acting. Have you thought of directing, James?