Spider-Man 3 is one of the great disappointments in superhero cinema, and it is a disappointment that is all the more painful for how close it comes to being something great. Sam Raimi's trilogy conclusion contains the seeds of at least two excellent films: a story about Peter Parker's corruption by the alien symbiote, and a story about Harry Osborn's grief and his eventual redemption. Either of these, developed with the care and focus that Spider-Man 2 brought to its material, could have been a worthy conclusion to one of the genre's most accomplished trilogies. Instead, the film tries to tell both stories simultaneously while also introducing a third villain, resolving a retconned subplot about Uncle Ben's killer, and finding time for one of the most notorious sequences in superhero cinema history. The result is a film that is simultaneously overstuffed and underwritten, chaotic in its plotting and inconsistent in its tone, and that squanders the goodwill of two exceptional predecessors.
At a Glance
Director: Sam Raimi
Runtime: 139 minutes
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard
Release: 2007
Critics Rating: ★★ (2/5 stars, a significant disappointment)
Audience Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5 stars, divisive)
Review Breakdown
Plot
Peter Parker is at the height of his powers and his happiness when an alien symbiote bonds with him, amplifying his aggression and his darker impulses. Simultaneously, Flint Marko, a petty criminal revealed to have been involved in Uncle Ben's death, is transformed into the Sandman. Harry Osborn, having discovered that his father was the Green Goblin and that Spider-Man was responsible for his death, takes up his father's mantle to pursue revenge. And Eddie Brock, a rival photographer at the Daily Bugle, bonds with the symbiote after Peter rejects it and becomes Venom. The film's fundamental problem is that none of these storylines receives sufficient development. The Sandman's arc is the most emotionally promising and the most consistently underserved. The Harry storyline is the most dramatically coherent and the most abruptly resolved. The Venom storyline, reportedly insisted upon by the studio against Raimi's wishes, is the most visually interesting and the most dramatically hollow.
Characters
Thomas Haden Church brings a pathos to Flint Marko, finding the character's love for his daughter and his fundamental decency beneath the criminal history with a subtlety the film does not always reward. His Sandman deserved a film of his own. James Franco's Harry Osborn arc is the trilogy's most emotionally resonant thread, and his eventual redemption and sacrifice are the film's most affecting moments, handled with a conviction that makes you wish the film had trusted this storyline enough to build its entire third act around it. Topher Grace's Eddie Brock is the film's most significant miscalculation, a character whose villainy is established through a series of petty grievances that make him feel like a sitcom antagonist rather than a credible threat, and who lacks the physical presence and menace the character requires. The symbiote-influenced Peter, complete with emo fringe and jazz club dance sequence, is the film's most notorious element, a tonal catastrophe that has become the defining image of the trilogy's failure. Maguire is committed throughout but is let down by material that asks him to play a character whose corruption is rendered as comedy rather than tragedy. Dunst's Mary Jane is given the least interesting material of the trilogy, reduced largely to a passive presence whose primary function is to be threatened and rescued.
Tone
The film's tonal inconsistency is catastrophic. Raimi's instinct for operatic emotion and broad comedy, which he balanced with such precision in the first two films, here tips into something incoherent. The symbiote Peter sequences are played for laughs the film has not earned and that sit in jarring contrast with the tragedy of the Harry and Sandman storylines. The jazz club sequence, in which Peter struts through Manhattan and performs an impromptu musical number, is the most discussed scene in the trilogy's history, and not for reasons that reflect well on the film. Whether it represents Raimi's deliberate subversion of the character's cool or a creative miscalculation is a matter of debate; what is not debatable is that it does not work.
Meaning / Themes
The film gestures toward interesting ideas about the seductiveness of power, the corrupting effect of pride, and the possibility of forgiveness, but it never develops any of them with sufficient focus or consistency to give them weight. The forgiveness theme, which runs through the Sandman and Harry storylines, is the film's most coherent thematic concern, and the scenes in which it is most directly addressed are among the film's best. But these moments are too isolated and too brief to carry a film of 139 minutes that is pulling in too many directions simultaneously.
Direction
Raimi's direction is at its best in the film's action sequences, which retain the kinetic energy and visual invention of the earlier films. The Sandman's first transformation is a beautiful piece of filmmaking, a sequence of remarkable visual imagination that briefly suggests the film the trilogy deserved. The final battle is competently staged but dramatically hollow, lacking the personal stakes and emotional clarity of the train sequence or the clock tower fight. The film's structural problems are ultimately beyond any director's ability to fully resolve, and there is credible evidence that Raimi was working against studio interference throughout the production.
Cultural Reception
Spider-Man 3 received mixed reviews on its release and was a massive commercial success despite its critical reception, grossing over $894 million worldwide to become the highest-grossing film in the trilogy. Critics acknowledged Church's performance and the Sandman transformation sequence while noting the overcrowded plot, the tonal catastrophe of the symbiote Peter sequences, and the miscast Venom. The jazz club sequence became one of the most discussed and parodied moments in superhero cinema history. It is now regarded as one of the genre's most instructive cautionary tales about studio interference and franchise overcrowding, and Raimi's subsequent public comments about the difficulties of the production have shaped the critical consensus around it.
Who Should Watch
Spider-Man 3 is essential viewing for fans of the Raimi trilogy, approached with significantly tempered expectations. The Harry Osborn arc and Thomas Haden Church's Sandman are worth seeing, and the film's failures are instructive about what happens when studio interference overwhelms a director's vision. Those who have not seen the first two films should watch those first.
Final Verdict: A significant and painful disappointment that squanders the goodwill of two exceptional predecessors. Thomas Haden Church and James Franco are excellent, the Sandman's transformation sequence is beautiful, and the film's forgiveness theme has real emotional potential. But the overcrowded plot, the tonal catastrophe of the symbiote Peter sequences, the miscast Venom, and the studio interference that reportedly shaped the film's worst decisions make Spider-Man 3 a conclusion the trilogy did not deserve. A film of moments buried in a film of failures.
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