REVIEW #51 Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Spider-Man 3 is the final instalment by Sami Raimi and follows Peter Parker as he battles the Sandman, bonds with the symbiotic alien Venom and also fights his best friend Harry. Whilst the film is full of enemies for Spider-Man he also struggles to maintain his relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

CAST & THE ACTING 

It was good to see the entire cast return again for the third film with Toby Maguire back as Peter, James Franco as Harry Osborne, Kristen Dunst back as MJ and J K Simmons back as Jonah Jameson. The two new villains casted were Topher Grace as Eddie Brock who later bonded with the symbiotic alien to become venom and Thomas Haden Church as the Sandman. Personally I think this was the one time Sami Raimi got it wrong, I don’t think they were the best people to play those roles and although they weren’t terrible, I think it could have been better. What I did like was Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacy, I think that casting worked well and her performance was good too. There were some really cringeworthy moments in this film such as when Toby Maguire is playing Peter after he bonded with Venom. I understand his confidence was through the roof but I don’t think it come across as confidence and instead was just cringeworthy in every sense. Whether that was the acting or just Sami Raimi making a mistake on his vision I don’t know but it didn’t work.

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

I actually enjoyed the storyline of this film, it has had criticism over having so many villains in and becoming a bit too crowded but I thought that was great. Spider-Man is always fighting multiple threats so it was good to see that crossover into film. It also provided more depth to the character relationships because the bond with venom puts further strain on Peters and MJ’s relationship and it gives the audience a different side to him we have never seen before, albeit that change was portrayed poorly but I appreciated it nonetheless. I liked how they linked the Sandman origins to uncle Ben’s death because it almost fed the cravings for violence by the symbiotic Spider-Man and emphasised that change even more. The redemption story of Harry Osborn was also a nice touch. 

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS

I think you can tell in this film they used a lot more CGI compared to the first two instalments and it was necessary to portray the Sandman and Venom because you can’t really create those just from costume design. However I don’t think it was done particularly well, the venom design in my opinion was awful and I actually didn’t notice that until watching the latest Venom film and realising how much of a better design that was, in contrast to Spider-Man 3. Poor design compared with average special effects let the iconic villain down because it had so much potential to be an epic introduction. Although I must say that the Spider-Man costume after he bonded with venom did look great! The cinematography was good overall and they did create some nice scenes.

OVERALL (7/10)

I did enjoy this film and I loved how it included 3 different iconic Spider-Man villains which not only made for good action sequences but also effected the character relationships within the film which added depth. However I do think the casting of Sandman and Eddie Brock could have been better and unfortunately the design for Venom was pretty poor, especially when you compare it to the recent design in the Venom solo film which was great. I also think they portrayed Peter Parker’s newfound confidence completely wrong, he bonded with venom and instead of coming across as confident and strong it was just completely cringeworthy. So overall it was still an enjoyable film but there was a lot of things that could have been improved compared to the first two films. 

Thanks for reading. 

Callan