In a shocking development, Peter Parker has problems dealing with his powers and his relationships. Mary Jane is still around to be saved, and to be a rotten girlfriend, though it is hard to blame her. And our villain of the week is the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), the retconned killer of Uncle Ben who fell into a science experiment. But this time there’s a second villain in Venom, a space symbiot who happens to infect Peter and then happens to bond with yet another person Peter happens to know (Topher Grace), because all super villains are connected to Peter personally. And Harry is still around as the New Goblin so the villain pool is crowded. Plus now we have Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is both in Peter’s physics class and happens to need to be saved by Spider-Man.
Here we go again. Same verse, same as the first. Well, almost, as the Batman problem with too many villains is accelerating. None of these miscreants is on anyone’s top ten list, although the scene of The Sandman waking up is the only time the trilogy does anything interesting cinematically. Unfortunately the rest of The Sandman’s appearances are ripped-off effects from The Mummy (1999). Venom was forced upon Raimi by the production company and he put little work into integrating that villain with the ones he had chosen. However, the big team up at the end isn’t bad.
But this is Spider-Man 3 and the only thing anyone wants to talk about is Dark Peter’s dance. Why do so many people hate it? It’s not because it isn’t fitting. Peter is (supposedly) a deeply uncool guy, so when the symbiot makes him attempt to be cool, this is what he comes up with. The scene also has the advantage of being something different in a trilogy that needs something, anything, different. But comics fans hate it.
The problem is they want the supposedly-uncool Peter to be cool. Spider-Man is wish fulfillment for people who think they deserved respect and didn’t get it. So they need their hero to be respected. They need him to be cool. Making fun of Spider-Man is not allowed, and the scene makes it easy to make fun of him. The hatred has nothing to do with the scene, but with some viewers’ need for validation.
I lack ego connection to Spider-Man, and am happy for something in the movie that isn’t a repeat.
The Spider-Man trilogy has some importance in the development of the superhero film genre (though much less than Superman, Batman, Blade, and X-Men) and sold a lot of tickets. But in time it will get lost under a pile of better films.