Dancing Over to the Dark Side

Saw Spider-Man 3. Well, for one thing, it escaped falling prey to the Curse of the Three. Think of every 3rd film in almost every Hollywood film franchise and you'll get a sense of what the curse is all about. Think of Return of the Jedi, think of X3, Batman Forever, Blade 3, Fantastic Four. Oh, wait. That was just its first movie. Most third films range from being huge letdowns (Return of the Jedi) to just plain bad (Blade 3).

I was a bit apprehensive when I heard about the influx of new characters (Gwen Stacy, Sandman, Eddie Brock/Venom) and since it appears that Spidey will be fighting not just one, not just two, but three villains (include Norman Osborn, the New Goblin) I was expecting it to devolve into a mess.

Raimi proved me wrong. He was able to pull it off. It came out pretty good, although not as good as the second film and it's bit better than the first one. Peter's succumbing to the dark side was handled pretty well. It stumbles a bit when it comes to focusing on the villains, a downside when a superhero flick has too many villains. I still feel that it should've been split into two films. The Sandman could've carried the entire film without Venom. They could've introduced the symbiote costume in this one and saved the Venom stuff for the next one. But since Raimi's still undecided if he'll return for the fourth Spidey film, I guess he was forced to include Venom in this one. (I remember reading somewhere that Raimi was considering using another villain but Avi Arad, the movie's executive producer told him to listen to the fans and use Venom. Raimi's not exactly a Venom fan, but, well, I guess he found a way to pencil him in. And imagine a full Spidey film where Venom's the big bad. It'll be something like Raimi returning to his Evil Dead roots. And instead of Topher Grace, Bruce Campbell as Eddie Brock! )

Anyway, the cast did pretty well as expected, although Thomas Hayden Church was underused and spent most of his time as a cool special effect. Topher Grace could've done better. And Bryce Dallas Howard's Gwen Stacy looked like a John Romita drawing brought to life. High marks go to regular scene stealers J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson and the aforementioned Campbell (Raimi's ubermensch, appearing this time as a "French" waiter in a French restaurant).

The action set pieces one-upped the ones in the previous film, from the first encounter between the New Goblin and spidey to the final Marvel Team-Up-style fight.

And I just have to wonder, with all the dancing Peter did in this one, was it a nod to the dancing Spidey icon that spread through the net a few years ago?