Spider-Man 3

Tobey Maguire’s got to get a new expression. He simply cannot be allowed to continue wading through movies looking like he just got done having sex for the first time. Remember what Ah-nold looked like in Twins? I used to like Tobey Maguire. Honest injun. Liked him in Pleasantville and The Cider House Rules and especially in Wonder Boys. I even liked him in the first two Spider-Man pictures. And then, in Spider-Man 3, he decided that he was going to get his groove on and dance ‘til he can’t, dance ‘til he can’t, dance ‘til he can’t dance no more. He busted a move, yo. And yes, I believe he even...got jiggy wit' it. He also combed his hair down over his forehead, and if he had grabbed a guitar I would have been positive that he was going to try out for the White Stripes.

I don’t even know where to begin. There’s no real story to talk about - only partially-organized bits of Spider-Man lore from all over the character's history: the black costume lands on earth, Flint Marko becomes Sandman, Eddie Brock becomes Venom, they both decide they want to kill Spider-Man, Harry Osborn continues wanting to kill Spider-Man (then nearly gets killed by Spider-Man, loses his memory, gets it back, does a good impression of Bruce Wayne, to the point of being told an important plot point by his butler, Alfred...er, Bernard, decides Pete is okay, and helps save the day at the end by swooping down out of nowhere in the Milennium Falcon and blasting Vader’s Tie Fighter - oh, no that was in Star Wars - no, Harry saves Pete by pumpkin-bombing Sandzilla), Peter Parker spends so much time being Spider-Man that he alienates Mary Jane, and Eddie Brock dates a character who died long before he ever appeared in the comics.

So it goes.

In addition to the “homages” noted above in the parentheses about Harry Osborn, there is the effect of Sandman morphing back into Flint Marko - which was much better fifteen years ago when it happened to Robert Patrick - and the consternation Peter Parker feels when the black costume sharpens his latent feelings of aggression and anger. I could almost hear the costume whispering, “Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!”

That’s not to say that any of these things adds up to anything good. No amount of arithmetic or creative accounting could make this confused conglomeration of poo look or sound anything like a good movie. The guys who cooked the books at Enron couldn’t have saved this disaster.

Now, as regards the concept of “suspending disbelief,” let’s talk about jewelry for just a second. I’m already watching a movie about a guy who got bit by a radioactive spider and developed spider-powers and has to battle a guy who got turned into a man made of sand and another guy who turns into a psycho when he dons a symbiotic black alien costume. I suppose I can suspend my disbelief just a bit more and grant you that Spidey’s spider-sense might have let him track the Golden Snitch - er, Aunt May’s engagement ring, during that first fight scene; but must I really be asked to believe that Sandman never lost his grip on that damn locket?

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

And that’s pretty much all you can say about this movie.