I agree. I hope what looks to be an awesome summer for movies doesnt turn into the summer of suck. score round one to disappointment.

5/4/2007 11:48:32 PM

Personally, I didn't mind the Peter/Harry team-up. I'm guessing that never ever happened in the comics, but I thought that it did bring a nice sense of closure to their conflict. It's about time that Harry came to terms with his father's death and learned that Spidey wasn't directly responsible. Then again, suppose Harry had decided to team up with Sandman and Venom? A 3-on-1 fight would have been really unbalanced, but might've been more interesting. But with it being so heavily unbalanced the writers would have written themselves into a corner. I'm guessing that with Sandman not being a villain so much as a guy pushed into the wrong situation, he would've wound up deciding to switch to Spidey's side and we'd still pretty much get the fight that we saw.

And I didn't mind Emo Peter at all. However, I have to argue that the symbiote suit didn't really make him evil in the film. At best he turned into a petty asshole who was just trying to get back at MJ, but everything else was just him being less afraid to say what he wanted. He asked for a better job, he wasn't afraid of women, and overall he went from being the omega of the pack to the alpha of the pack. That's not really evil, that's just a basic desire of every man on the planet. Every man wishes that he could be that confident, and so the symbiote gave Peter what he needed in order to make that happen. Yeah he tried to kill Sandman, but it's not like Black Spidey suddenly became the Punisher.

I liked this movie and I think I got my money's worth (though I think $7.50 is too much to pay for any movie ). But I admit that I do have a couple of gripes:

1) When that meteorite carrying the symbiote hit the ground, it would not have made a tiny-ass PFFT!, it would've made a really big boom.

2) Speaking of the symbiote, they didn't really spend too much time talking about its origins or anything like that. And as some have already pointed out, the symbiote is not evil. It does not make you do evil or bad things. It only tries to please its host by making you less inhibited so that you can do the things you normally would not allow yourself to do.

3) Venom did not get nearly enough development or screen time. Which I guess is understandable, considering that they chose to cram in Harry/Goblin, Sandman, Gwen Stacy and all the other drama, and of course you can't have Venom without first having black Spidey. That's a lot of shit to have to pack into even two hours of movie, but Venom is really the only one who pays the price imo.

4) With Harry brooding over his belief thinking that Peter killed his father, why the hell didn't the butler say anything about the wound being self-inflicted sooner? When he steps in out of nowhere into the Hobgoblin layer and says all these things, I'm thinking to myself "you didn't think to give Harry this information before....why?" And for that matter, why should Harry believe him? The wounds being from Norman's own weapons does not necessarily only lead to the wounds being self-inflicted. It's entirely possible that Spiderman took Norman's knife and used it to kill him. While we know that this isn't what happened, but Harry would've had to logical reason to believe that this was the only conclusion.

5) I can agree with the criticism that bringing in Gwen Stacy was really unnecessary. She didn't really serve any role other than to make MJ bitter and jealous. And if I were Gwen and Spidey was trying to upside-down kiss me in front of hundreds of cameras, I would've unmasked him faster than anything. But I'm evil like that.

6) Was it just me or did Spidey let all the public approval and fame go to his head? Accepting the key to the city? I know Spidey was getting tired of the public being afraid of him and calling him a menace, I thought he didn't really care about recognition or reward. Afterall, was it not the use of his powers for fame and money that ultimately led him to choose to be a hero?

5/5/2007 10:45:32 AM

Quote :

"The wounds being from Norman's own weapons does not necessarily only lead to the wounds being self-inflicted. It's entirely possible that Spiderman took Norman's knife and used it to kill him."

the butler said the blades were from the glider

Quote :

"Was it just me or did Spidey let all the public approval and fame go to his head?"

wasnt that like a major plot thing for the first half of the movie or so

[Edited on May 5, 2007 at 10:55 AM. Reason : ]

5/5/2007 10:54:44 AM

^^i agree with everything you said. i had the same gripes in my post on page 1.
^just b/c the wounds were from the glider doesn't mean spidey didn't take the glider and stabbed the guy with it

the meteorite was so random and quiet...they would have heard it easily...half the city would have heard it...
the butler coming out of nowhere was so crazy "I hear things in this house"
Harry: "Oh, ok, i guess i was wrong"
it was so easy for him to believe the butler...crazy

this movie could have been a lot better had they cut about 30-45 minutes of BS out of it (dancing scenes, aunt may scenes, kid with a camera scenes) and had more time with sandman and an evil harry.
then at the last scene, venom could have come about and left us hanging...

[Edited on May 5, 2007 at 10:59 AM. Reason : ya]

[Edited on May 5, 2007 at 10:59 AM. Reason : ya]

5/5/2007 10:58:41 AM

Quote :

"just b/c the wounds were from the glider doesn't mean spidey didn't take the glider and stabbed the guy with it"

Quote :

"the butler coming out of nowhere was so crazy "I hear things in this house" Harry: "Oh, ok, i guess i was wrong""

That was pretty much my point. If Harry hated Peter that much, why would he so readily believe what the butler told him? And like I said, the type of wound on Norman's body wouldn't say anything about who killed him. Norman could have easily killed himself (which is what happened) or Spiderman could have killed him. Harry shouldn't have accepted the butler's version so easily, is all I'm saying.

5/5/2007 11:04:29 AM

yeah i know, i was saying i agreed with you.

i had the same gripes, including about 20 more from this movie...
at times, the movie was almost a parody of itself... if that makes sense

5/5/2007 11:05:42 AM

the way the glider actually hit norman doesn't fit how one would actually stab someone, since the broad side of the glider is what stabbed him, but there's no use in arguing about what was never written by the writers

5/5/2007 11:12:55 AM

^^Oh okay, I just read your post wrong.

Quote :

"at times, the movie was almost a parody of itself... if that makes sense"

Now that you've said something, I think I could actually see it being like this.

[Edited on May 5, 2007 at 11:18 AM. Reason : blah]

5/5/2007 11:17:19 AM

i think they were trying to have the butler be the only nurturing/caring figure in harry's life at that point so he'd believe him. they just didnt develop that enough.

and i dont care what anyone says, popped collar spidey made me laugh (though it was a bit long).

5/5/2007 12:00:24 PM

Am I the only one here that thinks Sam Raimi is a talentless assclown and that this movie sucking balls should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone?

[Edited on May 5, 2007 at 12:10 PM. Reason : ]

5/5/2007 12:09:59 PM

I don't think Harry necessarily just went "Oh ok" when the butler told him. At the very least it confirmed that Peter's version of what happened was possible. The butler is obviously in favor of helping Peter and MJ and he adds that he loved Harry's father and Harry as well. It's partially a "it's time to put the past behind you" speech.

Besides, after Harry learns his father was the Green Goblin, he should have let it go anyway. His dad killed a bunch of people and tried to kill MJ and/or a bunch of kids. The butler talked some since into him.

5/5/2007 12:13:02 PM

Quote :

"Personally, I didn't mind the Peter/Harry team-up. I'm guessing that never ever happened in the comics, but I thought that it did bring a nice sense of closure to their conflict."

In sense, it did. Harry saved Mary Jane at the end Spectacular Spider-Man #200. I thought the movie captured the feel the relationship between Peter and Harry very well. The comics developed it more, of course, but I was impressed by how well the movie managed.

5/5/2007 1:29:40 PM

However many ^

I originally thought too that they would have the Venom thing be the end of the movie and set up for a 4th where they could really have a movie full of Spiderman vs. Venom. But after seeing the trailers I saw that it wouldn't end that way.

Plus it seems that this will indeed be the last Spiderman movie barring they just write off Kirsten Dunst (says she won't be in another) and focus on Gwen which I wouldn't be totally against. But since they basically killed off Brock and Harry, it would only seem that this will be the end to the trilogy, at least for now.

5/5/2007 2:17:35 PM

i say we jsut have a whole movie on CARNAGE

5/5/2007 4:00:53 PM

saw it

meh

5/5/2007 11:44:55 PM

too long

5/5/2007 11:59:31 PM

Quote :

"If Harry hated Peter that much, why would he so readily believe what the butler told him?"

he just needed to hear it from someone else, he was just in denial that his father was a dickhead and caused his own downfall, and peter was the most readily available person on which to place the blame.

5/6/2007 12:36:24 AM

Quote :

"i say we jsut have a whole movie on CARNAGE"

oh hell yes. Cletus Kassidy FTW!!

5/6/2007 12:58:13 AM

Quote :

"But since they basically killed off Brock and Harry, it would only seem that this will be the end to the trilogy, at least for now."

Brock is almost certainly not dead.

5/6/2007 2:44:46 PM

yeah, they'll need him to fight CARNAGE. seriously, i dont even want a plot i just want him spewing off crazy and going ape shit on the city.

5/6/2007 3:29:55 PM

There's no real evidence that Brock is dead. An explosion wouldn't make you disintegrate.

5/6/2007 4:18:56 PM

hah I thought harry was dead at first when the grenade basically exploded on top of him

5/6/2007 4:20:38 PM

good point. if harry can take a hobglobbery grenade to the head, im sure the symbiote, brock, or the two combined can take one.

5/6/2007 5:10:21 PM

So Harry can survive a grenade to the head (grenades that typically vaporize people, no less), but when the guy gets stabbed he dies? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

5/6/2007 8:52:06 PM

Could've only caught the peripheral damage of the explosion, whereas the stabbing hit vital organs. Not that hard.

5/7/2007 1:17:59 AM

Quote :

" Brock is almost certainly not dead. "

They'll bring them all back for the 4th and have Spidey fight 5 villians at once and it will only be a 4 hour movie. Peter Jackson is thinking about doing it.

I probably came into this movie with too high of an expectation but overall this installment was a disappointment. I think Spiderman 2 is the best one so far. Doc Ock was a greatsingle villian. Venom or Sandman alone would have been fine and much better movie.

I agree that the emo-Peter scene needed cut. The movie was 2.5 hours long...cut some scenes.

[Edited on May 7, 2007 at 9:00 AM. Reason : one last note]

5/7/2007 8:57:10 AM

the 15 minutes of Emo were terrible. he was even wearing black eyeliner. i thought that he was going to start hanging out in a coffee shop and bitch about how no one understands him.

5/7/2007 9:06:56 AM

I liked the movie a lot and will probably see it again.

The emo stuff made me cringe, though some of it was funny. It definitely went on far too long.

MJ was a whinny selfish bitch. I never liked dunst for that role and I really dont like the character now.

The action scenes were what made me like the movie. I thought Venom looked good, and can't actually think he is killed off. The teamup with Harry I liked a lot too. Im not a comic book reader so I don't much care if it mirrors 30 year old story lines.

Sandman I didnt think I would like, but I thought they did the character well. Since I am not a comic book reader, I was a bit confused as to why there were pits of sand in the middle of nowhere with molecular gizmos spinning around them, but I just figured you had to have read the comics.

5/7/2007 9:25:39 AM

^ i was more curious about the giant trucks full of sand in downtown NY where parking is a luxury itself.

5/7/2007 10:19:00 AM

bc its a movie

and i had a lot of things to question but im too lazy to post em now

[Edited on May 7, 2007 at 10:37 AM. Reason : yeah]

5/7/2007 10:36:59 AM

not to mention i thought the sand was sandman, not what was in the trunk.

but then i dont suppose having a shovel up there made much sense.

5/7/2007 10:50:37 AM

Considering that we saw Eddie's glowing skeleton, I don't really see how he could have survived.

Unless it was a teleportation bomb or some shit.

5/7/2007 12:18:05 PM

yeah...I almost distinctly remember seeing a skeleton right after the bomb went off...if they somehow pull out some shit where he's still alive I would be AMAZED...but then again...we've already found ass tons of things in the movie that didn't make sense at all...

5/7/2007 12:35:55 PM

or

there is that symbiote part left

and weve not met eddie brock

just jr

5/7/2007 12:38:38 PM

He was only Emo for a minute or two.

Then he was what I would consider a scene-kid. He was too upbeat to be emo

[Edited on May 7, 2007 at 12:40 PM. Reason : ]

5/7/2007 12:39:13 PM

They have already signed on to make 3 more spiderman movies, regardless if rami and the rest of them come back. And Carnage will be a part of the next one along witht the lizard/dr.connors.

http://www.cinematical.com/page/2/

5/7/2007 12:52:08 PM

I'm pretty sure Tobey won't be back for more. Didn't he say he didn't want to do any more Spiderman movies because he was tired of having to keep himself built for the part?

5/7/2007 12:58:28 PM

^^That link took me to nothing?

And I also think they've finished up the series. Kirsten Dunst has already said she was not doing another one, and I also think that Tobey may be tired of doing them and probably fears being stuck in this role forever(or at least for 6 more years).

And yeah there was a skeletal outline of Brock when the explosion went off, so perhaps he was teleported away by someone(new player in the next movie?).

I'd love to see more done with Venom than what they did, but if they have to change out half the cast I'm not interested.

[Edited on May 7, 2007 at 1:15 PM. Reason : .]

5/7/2007 1:15:37 PM

I did not see the move yet but I'm incredibly disappointed by what I'm hearing. Venom is my all-time favorite character and his part gets gimped? Fuck that. Same with Gambit from X-Men not getting any screen time.

I just hope that Venom did not die and comes back, but having Carnage in a movie will (if they do ANY justice to it) be rated R. Think Predator 2, in my opinion.

5/7/2007 1:30:39 PM

Pros:
- Good casting for Sandman
- Nice action sequence at the end
- Even though having Harry in this movie was pointless, it was a good fight scene between him and Spidey
- Pissed off Spidey (chucking the pumpkin bomb back at Harry)

Cons:
- Painfully obvious last-minute justification of Sandman's actions. "I'm not a bad person..." You shouldn't have to literally spell out what you want the audience to think.
- Emo-Spidey
- Tap-dancing Spidey
- Staying Alive montage (you know what the fuck I'm talking about, I almost walked out right there)
- Mary Jane singing (wtf?)
- Stupid soap opera crap (last time I checked Peter Parker lived in NY, not the OC) and lane plot "twists" (amnesia? seriously? oh the butler knew the whole time that Spiderman didn't kill his father, couldn't bring that up sooner?)
- Too many villains (the goblin crap should have been resolved last movie... Sandman/Venom would have been enough)

5/7/2007 3:56:54 PM

i agree with your pros except Sandman...he's in there with way more cons.

my thing with Sandman tho, Church did great IMO, but the whole point of the character. It was to help Spidey want to hate everything and be a baddie?

In the words of Eric Cartman, "laaame".

Could you not have the New Goblin plot intertwine with teaming up with Venom instead? How much more movie sense would that make? I think the whole Parker & Osborn team was tooo much of a strech for even casual movie goers.

However Gwen Stacy was great. That actress definitly nailed Stacy on the head. So was the extended air time of JJ and the entire Daily Bugle. All of those characters made the comedy worth it.

All you needed in this movie was Goblin, Stacy, Venom, Brock, MJ, and Parker. Simple. Clear. Spider-man to a T.

5/7/2007 4:07:37 PM

Quote :

"i agree with your pros except Sandman...he's in there with way more cons."

Oh I definitely agree. I'm just saying they picked the perfect actor (I can't visualize anyone else filling that role now). But his story, I couldn't really care about. We felt kind of bad for Doc Oc in the second one, they forced it too much down our throats here. Him being Uncle Ben's killer was too convenient. The dialogue at the end ("I'm not a bad person"... "I forgive you") was too forced.

Just like in X3, Kelsey Grammar was the perfect pick for Beast, but he was completely useless in the story.

5/8/2007 10:18:03 AM

^ yup. I can see now why critics give this movie a C average based upon most of the stuff that was forced down the viewers throat.

But yeah Church was a great actor for the Sandman. I had doubts at first, but he pulled the role off well.

5/8/2007 3:20:21 PM

Quote :

"- Staying Alive montage (you know what the fuck I'm talking about, I almost walked out right there)"

5/11/2007 3:00:18 PM

I liked the movie

you people

5/11/2007 3:43:33 PM