Spider-Man 3 - "So Good."

The Sam Raimi series is getting closer to the end on Blank Check, which means they covered Spider-Man 3 recently. This notoriously “bad” movie has been re-evaluated over the years, and rightfully so. 

This movie should never be considered a masterpiece or even the best or second-best in the trilogy. But I do think it holds up better once your expectations are altered a bit. Raimi, for whatever reason, was attempting to make a kind of musical comedy with this entry. I can’t get behind some of the musical elements (dancing to “The Twist” while making omelets will never make a bit of fucking sense), but other moments that have been ripped apart were never meant to be taken seriously. 

Of course, I’m referencing the “emo Peter Parker” sequence. It’s very clear that the film is presenting this as a comedic moment and doesn’t seriously consider Parker to be “dark” or “cool” or whatever he thinks he’s being. It’s making fun of the fact that this is the best Peter Parker can do when it comes to being evil: pointing at uncomfortable women, demanding milk and cookies, and dancing like a horny cartoon character. 

Viewing the film as more of a comedy doesn’t make this sequence great, but it does make it a bit more bearable. Honestly, it’s still hard to watch. Rewatching this film recently, I came across another character’s arc that I found much funnier: head injury Harry.

Early in the film, Harry (who I will also interchangeably refer to as Franco) almost dies during a fight with Spider-Man. He survives, but is left with the most convenient amnesia of all time: he’s still Harry, but he’s selectively forgotten that Peter is Spider-Man. So he also no longer blames Peter for his father’s death. For some reason, this turns Harry into a grinning moron, and I love it.

Franco is hilarious in this. His line delivery of “best friends” and his face in general amused me to no end. It’s just so fucking stupid you have to laugh about it. Franco was a murderous asshole, but a knock in the head turned him into a goofy bastard walking around eating cotton candy like a dildo. Yes, Franco was a nice enough guy before he believed Spider-Man killed his dad, but he wasn’t a fucking a mental patient. 

I’ll add my favorite moments of head injury Harry in the Random Thoughts section, but before I want to move on I have to comment on how he turns on a dime when he rediscovers that Peter is Spider-Man. He goes from comically goofy to comic-book villain in a single scene. And Franco is just as funny being over-the-top evil as he is playing too nice. My favorite moment has to be the delivery of the line “So good” when asked how he likes the pie right after he destroys Peter and Mary Jane’s relationship. He is clearly taking pleasure from eating that revenge pie in the scene, and it’s hilarious.

Embracing the ridiculousness of Spider-Man 3 can only get you so far, though. This is still a far too busy movie, but watching it in the current MCU era actually benefits it in that regard. This is still a busy movie with way too much going on (“evil” Peter Parker, Venom, Sandman, head injury Harry, Eddie Brock stealing the photographer job from Peter, MJ’s career problems, relationship problems, evil Harry, etc.). There’s a lot of shit going on here, but at least it’s all contained within one movie.

No matter how busy this trilogy gets, each film works on its own. You can watch any film in the trilogy cold and still understand almost every bit of it. But if I were to just watch Raimi’s newest movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, without watching the bulk of the MCU, I would be distractingly confused by everything. 

As a fan of the MCU (I’m actually digging it more now than ever before after getting over a case of Marvel fatigue), I can handle the homework required to properly enjoy the current movies. But watching the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy reminded me of how nice it was to be able to watch a comic book movie without considering the events of twenty other movies. 

That doesn’t make Spider-Man 3 less busy. But it does mean that I didn’t need to watch a six-episode limited series about Sandman beforehand. And I didn’t need to see a spinoff series just about The Daily Planet to understand what’s going on with Eddie Brock. And I didn’t need to watch an origin film about the Venom goo. All this shit could just be introduced out of the blue, and it worked. It doesn’t necessarily work well (that’s a really convenient middle of the night experiment Sandman falls into, and it’s crazy convenient of that space goo to fall to earth right by Peter of all places on the planet), but it works.

Spider-Man 3 is still worse than most of the MCU films, but being able to watch it cold is nice. It still kind of sucks. But you don’t need to do any homework. And if you embrace the goofiness, it ends up being the funniest movie in the trilogy. It’s also the worst, but it isn’t the trainwreck many people claim it to be. 

Random Thoughts 

Spitwads in a college class? That should have been the first red flag that parts of this film would be woefully out of touch.

Concussion Harry is great. It's like, "Hey, I had all the asshole knocked out of me. And I'm also so fucking stupid and happy now that giving me an old basketball brings me immense joy."

Seriously, he went from funding fringe scientists trying to create new sources of energy to being legit excited about getting Peter Parker's shitty old basketball.

Then he shows up eating cotton candy and grinning like a dildo at the Spidey parade. It's hilarious. I seriously wish they hadn't introduced any new villains in this and just made the whole movie about Harry rediscovering his hatred for Spider-Man. That way, we would get at least two more scenes of blissful idiot Harry, and I'll take that any day over a sand monster or space goo.

The comical amount of sand that comes out of Spider-Man's boot is a nice touch.

"You'll get your rent when you've fixed this damn door!" 

They look at him like he just killed a puppy in front of them after this line. The dude has been hounding him for rent for YEARS at this point. Even without alien goo, Parker was bound to snap at him eventually.

The woman acting equal parts frightened and sickened by Tobey Maguire weren't actresses. That was their natural reaction to him.

Franco's line reading of "So good" when asked about the revenge pie he's eating might be my favorite moment in the trilogy.

I love the prolonged look of disgust J. K. Simmons gives Maguire as he sits in Jameson's chair.

I forgot that Eddie Brock goes to church to ask God to kill Peter Parker. This movie is so fucking stupid/great at times.

I can think of plenty of other TV stars I would rather see as Venom instead of Topher Grace, like Alf or Balky from Perfect Strangers.

The news guy says Mary Jane recently had a "brief stint" on Broadway. Ouch.

Hey, Houseman, maybe you could have told Franco about how his dad died a movie ago. 

This is the first time I noticed Flash Thompson at Harry's funeral.