Spider-Man 3: Sorting The Character Facts From The Silver Screen Fiction
Spider-Man 3 broke the record for ticket sales in its opening weekend, making an estimated $375 million worldwide. Considering the cost of the film was close to $500 million, it seems certain the film will break even and likely set more records. The test will be how people react to having seen the film and if the mixed reviews will keep on-the-fence movie goers from seeing it.
The critics have been panning the film for a variety of failures, including an all too emotional cast with everyone shedding a tear (including villians) Kirsten Dunst singing (twice!), a fair number of convoluted plot devices and a seemingly cramped story-line filled with too much going on. All of that is true, but even still - I found it still very much worth seeing.
My kids, ages 3 and 7, loved it. My daughter cried at the end (spoilers ahead, so beware) and my son who is possibly the biggest Spidey freak on earth was mostly able to sit still for the entire 2-hour+ film: no small feat for a 3-year old.
Sam Raimi, who's been getting some heat for some of the over-the-top scenes in the latest installment in the Spider-Man series, needs to be cut some major slack. Unlike movie critics and your average movie-goer, we are a family submersed in comic books and the superhero/villain lore. I grew up on "origin stories" with a dad who collected comic books. So even with our "slightly above average level of Spider-Man sophistication" we were able to see the movie for what it was meant to be: a fantasy engagement with our inner child.
But that doesn't mean they stayed true to the story(ies).
***Spoiler Warning***
Sandman in the comic book series did NOT kill Uncle Ben.
This was the only thing that bugged me about the film. Raimi up to this point has stuck pretty closely to the stories as written by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. But essentially Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) was reinvented for this film, and unnecessarily so. In fact, he doesn't really even belong in this film, but alas there he is. The "real" Sandman was just a petty criminal who, like many of the Marvel superheroes and villains, was bombarded with a massive dose of radiation which resulted miraculously in him being able to transform himself into a creature with sand-like qualities.
Continued on the next page
