Spidey 3 better than I expected
July 22, 2007Spider-Man 3 became the first of three big May blockbusters to reach the discount theater here in Louisville last week. So despite my reservations, I decided to see it last night at the 9:40 p.m. showing. And it turned out to be better than I had expected.
Now part of that of course is the fact I only paid $4 to see the movie. And in a theater that wasn’t very crowded, which I also like. Plus unlike at first-run theaters, here they did not bloat the movie with tons of previews. There was only one preview, for Shrek 3, and then they went right into the film. Those factors no doubt influenced my opinion.
Still, the movie does move along at a decent clip. Only in a couple places did I find myself checking my watch. That’s not bad for a movie over 2 hours in length.
Now the main problem with the film was that they had too many story lines moving through it. Peter’s relationship with MJ, the upstart photographer aiming to steal Peter’s job at the Bugle, the relationship to Peter’s childhood friend who blames Spidey for the death of this father. And that’s before you throw in the actual villains in the film, Venom and Sandman.
The Sandman story line in particular I thought did not end well. The final denouement for that story line left you feeling flat, very unsatisfying. Because nothing was really resolved for that character–supposedly he was a criminal because he wanted to get money to help his daughter. Yet at the end of the film that situation is not resolved one way or the other.
All in all it wasn’t bad though. It’s worth seeing once, probably not worth seeing again when it comes out on DVD.