Word: spidered
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...studios dumping their clearance-sale titles on an apathetic market. For filmgoers, this was the purge before the binge. A heady month is ahead, with Shrek the Third and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ready to pick the public's pockets. And this weekend: Spider-Man 3, which on its own is guaranteed to top last weekend's cume. Anything under a $100 million launch would be disappointing for a threequel with a budget in at least the quarter-billion-dollar range. These days directors of special-effects epics can spend money faster than Tony Soprano...
...Tony, in moments of crisis, has an anxiety attack or orders someone's death. In Spider-Man 3, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), the young-adult nerd with preternatural powers, gets covered in intergalactic black stickum. Once he's gooed, he's bad - bad for him, anyway, which is still better than most of us on our best behavior. He spends much of the movie trying to resist the temptation of outlawry, the nefarious fashion of basic black...
...This plot device has tested the credulity of some early viewers of Spider-Man 3, as I gleaned from snippets of Jon Stewart's chat with Maguire on Tuesday's Daily Show. "Here's what I buy," Stewart said teasingly. "A supergenetic spider bites you on the hand and you yourself take on some of the characteristics of a spider. [But now] apparently something falls from outer space and it turns into a black suit. And that for me is where the Spider-Man series, y' know, loses its believability...
...Spider-Man 3 isn't very up-to-date either; indeed, it's defiantly anachronistic. Black-Peter is fond of 40s jive talk ("Now dig this") and antique hipster choreography. Mary Jane, who harbors the outmoded ambition to be a Broadway musical star, sings a ballad ("They Say It's Wonderful") from Irving Berlin's 1946 show Annie Get Your Gun. The film's main emotional points are loyalty to your parents, or parent figures, and fidelity to your friends - the lessons of the uber-square Andy Hardy movies from the 40s. And Spidey 3, like the first film...
...Fact is, the Spider-Man love story has grown older without maturing. In their early 20s, Peter and M.J. are like a middle-aged couple; he's too consumed by work to pay attention to her hopes for a career. The pair's attraction is assumed rather than displayed. That's why the film's one slice of heterosexual sizzle is the kiss between M.J. and the smitten Harry - the girl's mouth tastes like strawberries to her erstwhile beau. Peter's dilemmas may be internalized; but Harry's love, like his rancor, is volcanic...