We spent most of the workday busting on Spider-Man 3. The more I think about it, the worse it gets. There was all kinds of awful stuff that I didn't even cover on the live weblog. Like Harry and Pete goofing around with a basketball, Pete mooning over MJ at the broadway show ("That's my girl up there!"), and Spidey and Eddie both choosing the same church at the same time.
The question came up: Was it better or worse than X-Men 3? (which was only watchable for the stunt casting of Kelsey Grammar)
It's a tough call, because both movies are a complete mess. X3 feels like more of a mess simply due to the overabundance of characters, but the huge cast of bush leaguers at least kept the action up... which was a huge problem in Spider-Man 3, where it sucked whenever somebody wasn't getting punched. (And even one of those scenes was obnoxious, and not simply because it was MJ who got smacked.)
Here's my first draft of the Scenes That Must Go in order to make this a watchable film:
- Peter/MJ in the broadway debut.
- Harry/MJ making an omelette.
- Peter doing Saturday Night Fever down the street.
- Peter/Gwen dancing at the jazz club.
- Anything that involves Sandman killing Uncle Ben.
- Anything with Harry smiling.
- Anything with MJ.
- Anything with Tobey Maguire (NOT Spider-Man; there's a difference.)
Those first four are the really critical errors, I think. Those are the scenes that ruin everything else. Notice how they all involve singing and dancing!
And that list doesn't even cover idiotic stuff like the crane that can carve buildings like butter. I'm willing to let some of that slide in exchange for excising the truly terrible junk.
Everybody I talked to at work today A) saw the movie and B) thought it was crap. So I stand by my assertion that Spider-Man 3 will not make as much money as the previous Spider-Movies (over the long run - I know it made a ton on opening weekend, so hold your emails). Word of mouth will take this one to "I'll catch it on DVD" right away. Or, at any rate, it should. People are stupid.
Nevertheless, I'm willing to call Spider-Man 3 better than X-Men 3. Because, even though it had no interest in making sense and demanded you hate it as much as Sam Raimi did, it kept the characters true to the comics. Visually, at least. Whereas the X-Men movies just wanted to be another Matrix.
I mean, look at Sandman's shirt! You don't think there was a huge temptation to not have him look like the bouncer at a gay bar? Kudos all around.
So, X-Men 3: about as bad as expected, therefore bad.
Similarly, Spider-Man 3: not as good as expected, therefore bad.
Ironically, Fantastic Four: not as bad as expected, therefore good.
And unfortunately, Superman Returns: totally as bad as expected, therefore very bad.
Looking into the future, Fantastic Four 2: will likely not be as good as expected since the first one was not as bad as expected. Therefore, bad.
It's all about expectations.
Nice review. Beeeeyotch!