Spider Man 3 (2007)

Directed by: Sam Raimi | 140 minutes | action, thriller, adventure, science fiction | Actors: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Theresa Russell, Bill Nunn, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Ted Raimi, Cliff Robertson, JK Simmons, Mageina Tovah, Dylan Baker, Joe Manganiello, Rosemary Harris, Bruce Campbell

Film directors have developed a new gadget in recent years: the filming of comic strips. Although the word gadget may be somewhat condescending (after all, it is not the simplest and especially not the cheapest film genre), more and more famous and unknown comic book heroes are getting their place on the silver screen. There were, for example, the successful ‘Sin City’, the film adaptations of ‘Batman’, the ‘X-Men’ trilogy and recently ‘300′, a historical epic in a raw and heavily stylized jacket. Raw, because there is very little draft in ‘300′. In ‘Spider-Man 3’, director Sam Raimi is clearly looking for more depth, although that almost kills him. Like a spider that catches a big fly, but almost forgets it because it’s too busy perfecting its web.

In the third part of the adventures surrounding Peter Parker, the hero faces more enemies than ever before. Where Spider-Man only had to deal with the Green Goblin and Dr. Otto Octavius, in part three, no fewer than three bad guys stand in front of him: Sandman, Venom and Harry Osborn, who in an almost identical capacity to his father wants revenge. In addition, Peter struggles with his own personality: a strange black substance has drilled itself into the earth and ensured that Spider-Man has become even stronger. That stuff only brings out the dark side of Peter: the sweet nerd has turned into a mean, arrogant brat who neglects his friends and doesn’t care about anything. A comedic parody of ‘Saturday Night Fever’ is the only positive this storyline delivers. Because three enemies in Spider-Man is really too much.

The great representation of evil is not the only thing lacking in ‘Spider-Man 3’. The depth that Raimi has been looking for turns into long-winded and unnecessary dialogues in which Peter, MJ and Harry struggle with each other and with their emotions. As in a cheap soap, relationship problems, one-liners about friendships and clumsy marriage proposals follow each other in rapid succession. And that’s not what can be expected from this spectacular action genre. Strangely enough, in Spider-Man 3, it’s the supporting characters that make these slow and confusing storylines forget: JK Simmons has never been more powerful in his role as editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle, and Bruce Campbell as host of an expensive French restaurant wears a contributes quite a bit to the simple humor in the film. Raimi also knows how to apply that humor to a number of spectacular action scenes. After a wild chase between skyscrapers and narrow alleys, Spider-Man defeats Harry by simply putting a piece of cobwebs between two walls that the Green Goblin’s successor slams into, and after his first confrontation with Sandman, Spider-Man knocks the sand out of his boots like a tourist on the beach. Relativity is also an art. In addition, the action scenes and special effects in this third installment are truly stunning. Not only are they bigger and harder than in the first two parts, Raimi has also portrayed them in a very impressive way through an even busier camera operation and faster editing. You often really don’t see blows coming and especially the special effects for the Sandman, which you can hardly expect to seem realistic, are very believable and strongly developed. The creators of ‘X-Men’ would be jealous.

Despite these qualities, Raimi has not succeeded in making ‘Spider-Man 3’ a topper in the genre of comic film adaptations. Although the images are strongly related to the pictures in the comics, Raimi has been too pretentious this time. It seems as if when making the film he took into account the probability that the entire cast can no longer be assembled for a fourth part. And maybe they should just leave it at that.