In a severe case of summer blockbuster bloat, Spider-Man 3 has not one but three villains. There is Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), a misunderstood lug able to summon the power of the world's beaches; Harry Osborn/New Green Goblin (James Franco), all protruding Adam's apple and pent-up revenge fantasies; and last but not least, there is a small, alien-bred puddle of black goo. That last one is some nasty business, able to bring out the very worst in any individual unlucky enough to come into contact with it. For Peter Parker rival Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), this means transforming himself into the mangy-toothed Venom; for the far less flashy Peter, on the other hand, it means rakish bangs, a cocky strut, and an unfortunate tendency toward Great White Way–style dance numbers.
Specifically, a chair-twirling, snap-heavy routine to the tune of "Fever" (all that's missing is jazz hands), which Peter performs on the dance floor of a crowded club in an effort to turn Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) crimson with jealousy. It's the sort of astonishingly awful scene that can sink an entire film, and it marks an unfortunate turning point in Spider-Man 3. Up until that moment, director Sam Raimi had delivered a painless, if overly familiar, third installment to the franchise. As Peter makes like a touring member of Chicago, however, the vessel springs a major leak, quickly turns aft in the air, and sinks.
The cause of this turnabout is Raimi's worst instinct as a director, which is to err on the side of the adolescent. Spider-Man 3 is rated PG-13, and it has the age bracket squarely within its sights; every action sequence is brimming with cool shit for fevered hormones to feast on. Peter Parker doesn't just take a beating from the New Green Goblin, he's thrown into and through a building, crashing out the other side in an explosion of glass and masonry. Later he's sent pinballing off rebar at a construction site, each bone-dusting thud arriving with the full power of THX. Raimi is at his most comfortable during these moments; he likes nothing better than swooping, soaring, and slinging along with his superhero, and when his camera is unbridled the effect is dizzying.
Once the script calls for a return to earth, however, scenes are treated with all the attention found in the final period before recess. Among the mortals, Spider-Man 3 is a plodding, shallow affair, its parade of supporting characters—from Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) to Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard)—dutifully blurting out exposition as blandly as possible before the next spectacle arrives. (Gwen's role is especially egregious, as she's little more than a peroxided prop.) Even the romance between Peter and Mary Jane—the heart of all three movies—is so lazily dealt with here that when the time comes for a heart-wrenching climax, the movie hasn't earned the effort, having long ago abandoned the characters in a bowl of half-baked mush. Only during the creation of Sandman is Raimi able to successfully bridge the human with the fantastic, but it occurs early on and remains unmatched.
The remainder of the film is filled with what we've come to expect from a Spider-Man movie, only this time it rings especially hollow. As Spider-Man 3 arrived at its hastily concocted climax, it became apparent that for all its firepower and purported character arcs, we aren't really supposed to feel anything about it. All we're asked to do is gape in awe at the digital pageantry on display, whooping and cheering for every acrobatic pivot and gravity-defying twirl Spidey makes. Even the citizens of New York, so much a part of the previous films, are treated as mere tourists this time around, reduced to staring slack jawed at Spider-Man footage on the Times Square JumboTron. Spider-Man 3 has spectacle to spare, but what it's lacking, more so than its predecessors, is any footing in reality. They took a comic, made it into a film, and ended up with a cartoon.
