Scene Anatomy 101 07.09.08: Spider-Man 3

Posted by George H. Sirois on 07.09.2008

It’s a shame they didn’t do something like this with his costume on…



Hello, everyone! It's damn good to be back on the pages of 411Mania after over a month off. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes while I was off working on the Southern Cross Novel Challenge – otherwise known as SoCNoC – and completing a 50,000 word-draft of a novel in only 30 days. In case you're wondering, yes, the mission was accomplished and I'll be going into it in further detail in tomorrow's Mad Prophet of the Airwaves rant in The UBS Evening Movie News.

And in case you can't get enough of me, I'll be participating in this week's Fact or Fiction with Ben Piper. So yeah, it's a busy week.

But that's all for future columns. Right now, we're going to discuss a film that was very much anticipated by fans that had been given a Part 1 that met expectations and a Part 2 that exceeded them quite a bit. The bar had been set so high for this one that it was almost certain to disappoint, and considering the behind-the-scenes drama, it's no wonder that it did disappoint.

Despite the many problems, it still became the highest grossing film of the year (domestic, Pirates 3 took the worldwide gross). I'm talking about the 2007 Sam Raimi smash-hit…



Now, I've made it clear in previous columns that I was not a big fan of this installment of the highly successful Spider-Man franchise. While many others have made their case for how good or bad it was, I can sum up my experience watching it in one word: frustrating.

It was frustrating to watch so much attention being given to the floundering relationship between Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). Granted, it's their relationship that Raimi intended to be the beating heart of the trilogy, but while the other two films properly balanced the drama with action, the drama in this one took center stage and I almost wanted to scream at the screen in true Monty Python fashion, "Get on with it!"

Which brings me to another reason I was frustrated. The dramatic moments between Peter and Mary Jane would have been just fine if a plethora of other plotlines hadn't been introduced in the meantime. There was Harry Osborn (James Franco) picking up where he left off at the end of 2, discovering his father's other life as the Green Goblin and using his technology to suit his need for revenge. There was Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), who broke out of prison, became The Sandman, and then attempted to rob as much as possible in New York City to pay for his daughter's medical bills. Oh, and let's not forget that it's revealed in this film that Sandman was actually responsible for Uncle Ben's murder, so there's another plotline to worry about. (I'll grant Raimi and Co. a couple extra points for finding a way around the problem they created by having the burglar that Peter allows to escape still playing a part in the murder, even though he didn't actually pull the trigger.)

And then there's the matter of the black costume storyline, which is what everyone wanted to be the main focus of Spider-Man 3. Everyone except Raimi himself, who made it no secret that he only wanted to focus on early villains, and the black costume storyline & Venom weren't much to his liking. But Avi Arad of Marvel demanded that Venom become a major part of this one, so he and the costume were literally dropped into the movie out of nowhere, via a meteor that just happens to land near Peter and Mary Jane.

Again, more frustrations from me since Raimi had already established an astronaut character in the second film – John Jameson, first man to play football on the moon – and so it would have been a perfect fit to have John discover the symbiote there and bring it back to Earth.

But the main element that was so disheartening for me was that so much attention was given to how the black costume affected Peter Parker, which led to the emo look that left itself wide open to attacks from fans, that there was so little attention given to how the costume affected Spider-Man. And yes, I know they're the same person, but it would have been great to see a montage similar to the one in the first one with witnesses observing how much more violent their hero has gotten since he got a new suit. (It would have been a perfect time for another Jim Norton cameo: "He still stinks and I still don't like him!")

But there was one moment during the second half of the film, where we were given a very effective peek at just how the symbiote suit has changed Peter. During the time when Harry Osborn (James Franco) has a bout of amnesia (which reflects a storyline that was in the comics, so I was fine with that), he rekindles a romance with Mary Jane, who's now on the outs with Peter. After their kiss, Harry is visited by the ghost of his father Norman (Willem Dafoe) and his memory is restored. He now remembers that he holds Spider-Man responsible for the death of his father, and he also remembers that Spider-Man is really Peter Parker.

So Harry lures Mary Jane away from Peter for good, forcing her to break off their relationship completely. Once Peter realizes that Harry is behind it, he puts on the new black suit and pays his former friend a visit.

Harry pours himself a drink and takes a sip as he senses Peter standing in the doorway behind him. He smiles with satisfaction, knowing that his moment of final revenge is here at last.

HARRY: Would you like a drink?

Peter's failure to respond is his answer. Harry takes another gulp of his drink.

HARRY: I'm sorry. What was I thinking? Bad for the public image, right Mr. Key to the City?

Peter's not about to answer a taunt like that. Instead, he gets down to business.

PETER: What did you do to her?

Harry turns towards Peter and walks over to him. His hatred for Peter has consumed his whole face as he glares at his former friend. He takes another sip.

HARRY: I did what you failed to do. I was there for her. Mary Jane and I, we understand each other.

PETER: She doesn't know what you are.

HARRY: Peter, she knows me very well. When she kissed me, it was just like she used to kiss me.

Harry closes his eyes as he remembers the kiss that Mary Jane gave him earlier, and his mouth fills with the taste of her lips.

HARRY: The taste… strawberries.

Here is where we get the first taste of just how more aggressive Peter is nowadays. He swings at Harry and connects with a vicious punch to his jaw, causing Harry to spill his drink. But then again, his other hand is now free for him to punch Peter back. The two rivals exchange blows in Harry's home, and after several more punches back and forth, Harry pulls a blade on Peter, stabbing him in the side with it. It's the same blade that he was going to use on Peter in Spider-Man 2.

Peter forces the blade out and punches Harry some more, which he is more than willing to reciprocate. Keep in mind that both young men have been genetically enhanced, with Peter's spider-bite back in the first film and Harry using the same formula that caused an increased strength – as well as a decreased sanity – that his father originally used.

That's not all that Harry has from his father. Hidden under his shirt, he has the wrist blades that were part of the modified suit he created. He unsheathes them and slashes at Peter, eventually knocking him through one of the glass doors in the apartment.

HARRY: How'd you like that, Spidey?

Peter gets to his feet and beckons Harry to come closer.

PETER: That all you got?

The two continue fighting, and this time Harry gets knocked through a window into another room.

Now, it's Peter's turn to do a little taunting as he stands in front of the doorway.

PETER: Stings, doesn't it?

Harry wipes the blood from his mouth, as his rage is now completely off the charts.

HARRY: I protected you in high school and now I'm gonna kick your little ass!

Peter taunts him a bit more with a sarcastic…

PETER: Ooooh.

Harry charges Peter and the two of them are hitting each other so hard that they're losing their balance. Both of them fall through another doorway, into the hidden room where both Norman and Harry kept their artillery, their armor and their gliders. In Harry's case, it is shaped like a snowboard, a lot different from Norman's original goblin glider.

One of the spinning blades comes loose during the battle, and the cables keeping Harry's glider down are cut, letting the glider spin off and crash elsewhere in the room. In no time, thanks to the glider, the blades and the two men fighting, Harry's chamber is in shambles. His grenades are rolling on the floor as Peter shoves Harry into the wall, where he collapses in a heap.

He looks up at Peter, defeated.

HARRY: You're gonna kill me like you killed my father?

How many times has Peter had to try and make Harry believe that he didn't kill Norman? If he doesn't believe him by now, there's nothing he can say that's going to do the trick.

PETER: I'm done trying to convince you.

Harry's rage now turns to anguish, as he stays on the ground. He lost the fight to Peter, and he lost his chance for revenge. All he can do now is lament about how this man, this bully who used to be his friend, took everything that mattered to him.

HARRY: You took him from me. He loved me.

When Peter answers, we see and hear him verbally kicking Harry while he is down. Saying something like this is definitely unbecoming of a hero, and this is not the Spider-Man that we know.

PETER: No. He despised you. You were an embarrassment to him.

Harry starts to feel choked up as Peter tells him this, which prompts Peter to speak like the bullies he encountered growing up. The same bullies that Harry once protected him from, and now here was Peter acting like Flash Thompson in his high school days.

PETER: Awww, look at little Goblin Junior. You gonna cry?

Peter smiles at the pathetic young man that he sees before him, and then turns to walk away. Harry's mood quickly changes from despair to rage all over again, and he grabs one of the grenades on the floor.

Harry throws the grenade at Peter, whose spider-sense tells him to duck. He does and snags the explosive with his webbing, then slings it back in Harry's direction. Peter doesn't even bother to wait and see the grenade explode, leaving his old friend for dead. We later see that Harry's face has been disfigured because of the explosion, and we can only assume that the formula that has enhanced his strength played a part in him not getting much more damage than that. Especially since Harry was right next to the grenade that destroyed his home.

This whole scene is truly the meanest – in a good way – that we've seen Peter Parker in this film. I say in a good way, because every other scene where he's showing off an effect of the symbiote suit, he's just an annoying asshole, and that's not the best way to change him. (I'm sure I don't need to mention the bar scene as a prime example of how annoying Peter was; I almost shielded my eyes out of embarrassment.)

And this is what I mean by Spider-Man 3 being a frustrating film. With too much time donated to the slowly deteriorating relationship between Peter and Mary Jane, and not enough time to showing both facets of Peter being changed by the alien costume, the remainder of the plots were left alone and these are the plots that we needed to see to get a fully satisfying third chapter to this trilogy. By the time Peter finally tore off the costume and brought about the creation of Venom, there was less than a half hour left in the film, resulting in one of the most uneven films I've ever seen.

It's a real shame, since this face-off between Harry and Peter showed that there was something truly unlikeable that was brewing in Peter Parker. If only we got to see those same elements in Spider-Man as well.

Good to be back, and until next week, Class Dismissed!


-- George H. Sirois