Saw the movie last night, my thoughts:
Of the 3 Holland movies I think this one was both the most fun of the three, and the weakest movie of the three.
This movie feels the least organic, the beginning feels rushed and "forced", racing spiderman past the serious "if he going to jail" type stuff so we can get to the fun stuff.
The movie starts to slow down in the 2nd and especially 3rd acts, gives itself time to breathe, and that's when we get the best quality and fun in the movie. Obviously to the surprise of no one, Tobey and Andrew show up....and they do a great job. I appreciated how each spiderman came off as different, Tobey was the older more seasoned spiderman, Andrew's is the most emotional distraught (having lost Gwen) and has confidence issues, Holland is actually the most driven of the three at this point, having just lost his Aunt, and so his feelings of revenge and anger are strong. There is wonderful banter, I love that as soon as they find out Tobey's spiderman doesn't make web fluid that is all they can talk about!
The villains also did a good job. Lizard and Sandman were more background characters, which was fine....in such a movie they could easily cram too much in (and as I said the beginning felt rushed to let them get as much stuff as they did) so it allowed them to focus on Doc Ock, Electro, and Green Goblin.
I liked this Electro a lot better. He wasn't over the top crazy, just power hungry. Doc Ock was awesome, and I appreciated that they pulled no morality punches with him. As soon as they corrected the chip, Doc Ock was a good guy again, no wavering, no holds bar. The man was not a villain he was a travesty, and they did well to show that. And Dafoe slays once again as the Goblin, just awesome.
All in all it was a fun ride, and very enjoyable. Again in terms of pure "how is it as a movie" I think its the weakest of the three, but I think the other movies set high bars, and it blows the pants off of the original Spiderman 3.
Here are a few list of high and low points
High
- Holland once again slays the emotional scenes. The scene when he basically collapses while his friend's hold him (in grief over his aunt) is really well done.
- Garfield's spiderman saves MJ, and in some ways gets redemption for the loss of Gwen. That scene is probably the brightest star in the movie, when MJ asks Garfield is he is okay, and he is just crying out of pure joy.... the entire audience lost it on that scene.
- The scene when Octavius and Tobey get to greet each other as old friends. And when Oct asks Tobey what he has been doing, his simple callback answer "trying to do better", was great.
- I love that Wong is the sorceror supreme now, that was both out of left field and yet very appropriate. I also appreciate the reasonable explanation thrown out there (Strange was bliped for 5 years, so Wong got the role). It gives different people different "outs". For purists who think it has to be Strange, they can just say this was a technicality. For people who think Wong (who is far more experienced than Strange) has earned the role, they can just believe he earned it on merit.
- The fact that this movie balanced 3 spiderman and 5 villains and actually made it work has to get some applause. I was VERY WORRIED about this, for I think that is part of what ruined the original Spiderman 3.... too many characters to focus on. But this one did it very well.
- The fact that the spidersense is so implicit to Spiderman's body that it operates when his spirit has left was a very cool touch, I like that a lot.
- The Matt Murdock cameo was perfect!
Lows
- I think my biggest issue in the movie was Aunt May. The Marissa Tomei May has been mostly a background character up till now, present but never really driving things. The fact that she was the "plot driver" of this whole movie felt weird to me, and a bit forced. Suddenly she is the super moral compass for spiderman? Her death was a poignant scene, but in a movie that was probably the most comedic of the three, it also threatened to be undercut by the lighthearted tone of much of the rest of the movie.
- Once again, we have to ask.... where are the Avengers? Frankly....where are all the spiderman supporters? This was one of my big problems with the beginning. We are pounded with people disparaging spiderman....but the guy freaking helped save the world. Where were the people who he had saved coming out and saying "spiderman is a hero!" and booing Jameson. Where was our new Captain America saying "Peter Parker is an american hero"..... there was none of that in this movie. Now I respect that getting actors for cameos is expensive and hard to schedule, but honestly I didn't even need to see them. For example, Peter gets a letter saying something to the effect of "we got your back", with signatures from a whole bunch of Avengers. For when Matt Murdock comes in, we get a quick note "oh please Ms May your expenses have been fully covered by Stark Industries, no need to worry". Again something that lets us know that Peter is not suddenly thrown into the cold by all of his super family the second things go bad for him.
- When Peter decides not to tell MJ and Ned about who he is, I think people took it as heroic, but I did not. He already tried to manipulate the world in having them forget him. And now he is taking away the choice of his friends. I get the whole "I don't want them in danger"....but its their choice to make. Peter even talked about that one of the major differences between him and the other two spiderman, is he had learned to work as a team...but now leaves that team behind. I think on a more "meta" level, probably the reason for that is it leaves the door open based on how the Sony/Marvel negotiations go in the future. If they get the actors back on board and Sony in tow....than we may finally get that "remember me" scene and move on. If they don't, it gives them a clean slate to move on if they need to.
- While Doctor Strange is an impulsive character, I think they pushed that a bit too far in this movie for plot reasons. Strange even gets on Peter "wait you didn't even try some other options before coming to me"....but damn Strange is the one starting a world changing spell without even sitting down with Peter, telling him what it was going to do, and then making sure that's what he wanted. Literally he is about to massively change the world, and he acts like its just a 5 minute appointment, quick and clean off to the next. In that context, thank god Wong is the sorcerer supreme, Strange is way too impulsive and irresponsible to be wielding that authority.
- I was so sure that at some point when they talked about "the tingle", that one of the other Spiderman would finally say "you mean the Spidersense?"....and we would finally have that. They are STILL calling it the tingle....come on!
