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Arts & Entertainment Movies FILM REVIEW "Spider- Man 3" / "El Hombre Araña 3"
Arts & Entertainment Movies FILM REVIEW "Spider- Man 3" / "El Hombre Araña 3" | FILM REVIEW "Spider- Man 3" / "El Hombre Araña 3" |
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| Written by MICHAEL SHAPIRO | |
| Saturday, 12 May 2007 | |
 ' ' "Spider-Man 3" is being marketed as the film in which Peter Parker must confront his dark side. Spidey dons an all-black version of his crime-fighting costume. The previews look cool, dark and scary. We're promised a continuing rumination on the balance of power and responsibility, in which Peter explores just how he is different from any of his arch-enemies - similarly empowered by accidents of science, but consumed by their dark urges. This is the stuff of Batman's lair - a hero driven by revenge, blurring the lines of good and evil even as he fights the latter. Thing is, Peter Parker, as played by Tobey Maguire, is way more dork than dark - and the film isn't entirely clear about where it wants us to draw that line. Are we supposed to think he's dark or laugh at him? Seemingly both. Consumed by his own power and the desire to avenge his uncle's death, the dark Spidey persona invades Peter Parker's character in odd ways - primarily by combing his bangs over his eyes, in an emo/new-wave style that doesn't say "tough" so much as it says "uncomfortable outcast." Aside from the hair, though, Parker doesn't come across as angry or angst-ridden; instead he becomes slick and pseudo-smooth, an easy talker with the ladies who either think he's a freak, or sexy, or both - it's a little difficult to tell. Maguire plays the part for broad, Disney-variety laughs. The script explains this behavior as follows: Parker is the victim of a spooky black symbiotic substance from outer space, which has invaded both his suit and his life, accentuating certain aspects of his personality that were already present - hence the dorkiness, among other things. (We know little about this black substance, other than that it closely resembles similarly evil substances found in "The X-Files" and "Princess Mononoke," and is probably attacking all of us by way of the film industry.) Yet the so-called comedic effects it has on Parker wind up detracting from what I thought was the point – that being the hero's struggle with the dark and evil within. Is the film poking fun at its own superhero's clean-cut alter ego? In other words, is this as dark as Peter Parker can get? Parker's bad side may be laughable, but the film's other villains are appropriately creepy: the special effects do great justice to Sandman/Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) and Venom/Eddie Brock (Topher Grace). Sandman is a particularly compelling character. James Franco returns as Harry, and he gets a chance to charm as well as threaten. Kirsten Dunst does well with the role of Mary Jane. But one has to wonder: this being a potentially modern perspective on the comic, will we see an installment when the women are more than pawns, repeatedly dangled to lure the hero? |
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