How Many Films Into One?

Spider-Man 3 has joined us in a record breaking way and I'm kinda happy. Quick summary, it's better than the second film but not the first. I agree with my mates Drew and Mike in that the first two thirds of the film rock but the last bit is super cheese rubbish. Tobey Maguire seems to have gotten over his need to keep removing his mask whenever he gets into any trouble what so ever, though the habit is still there.

My hatred for Dunst's Mary-Jane increased ever more this time round, ever more the bitch and I thought leaving a guy at the altar was pretty bad. Sandman was a good villain, the transformation scene was unbelievable, although I really wasn't keen on the flying sand storm and his last scene was atrocious.

My main problem is how it would have made two amazing films instead of one pretty good one. Ever since the announcement of Venom being in the film I was worried about villain overkill, a problem most superhero franchises suffer. I hoped beyond hope that near the end of the film Peter would get rid of the symbiote and the ending would be the cliffhanger of revealing Venom. Watching Spider-Man 3 reinforced this belief. The film was doing a perfect job of introducing Eddie Brock and if we can have two films of building Dr Connor's character why rush to Venom and have him fight Spidey in the same movie.

Raimi was doing such a good job of Harry as the new Goblin as well, James Franco seems to have caught Maguire's mask removing disease though. Not to sure about replacing the glider with a futuristic snowboard, the glider is such a symbolic part of the Goblin. There seemed to be a lot of plot holes too, the main being the famous bell tower scene, why did Peter go there? He had no reason to as he knew nothing of the symbiote's weakness. What happened to his spider-sense? Peter kept getting ambushed throughout the film and Venom bypassing it was totally lost despite a line explaining that very fact. Now we get to the spoilers.

In my mind Spider-Man 3 should have been the same film up to the point where Brock got the symbiote and Harry was disfigured then we could have concentrated on some of the sub plots and new characters a little more. I was totally loving this part of the film and thought it was a fantastic realisation of the Peter/Harry relationship in the comics. Harry's more underhanded messing with Parker's head was over far too quickly and Peter seemed to decide to put on the costume and go beat the living daylights out of the someone he thought was back to normal a little to quickly for my liking.

Topher Grace did a fantastic job as Brock and his Venom was great, he deserved more than just the one fight scene, and one he needed Sandman's help with. Spider-Man 4 should have been Venom's movie. Parker trying to regain his popularity, Venom coming along and messing Parker up totally then the kidnap scene from 3 to finish. Parker knows he outclassed so has to go groveling to Harry to help him rescue MJ, the only thing the two could actually forget their differences.

All of which takes us to that final fight scene. Some fantastic moments in it but overall, WHAT THE HELL? Peter and Harry are suddenly best friends and quipping jokes to each other because of something Osborn's butler said. This should have been a fight the two of them forced themselves through for MJ's sake. The clapping at Spider-Man's arrival who we've just been told is hated again, any scene involving the gathered crowd was awful in fact. The shot of Spidey and the flag actually made me winch.

The rumours for the next film have already started and Sony have said they're defiantly making up to six. Hopefully there's truth to Dunst not re-signing and will see if a new actress is enough to get me to like the character. The other main rumour is that one of the two deaths will be reversed. I'm hoping it's Brock rather than Harry for reasons I've covered above.