Spider Man 3: Random Thoughts

I went to see the new film Spider Man Three over the weekend. I wasn't impressed. Here are some random thoughts about what I thought went wrong with the movie. By the way, this post is under a spoiler alert from this point on. You have been warned.

• Memo to all Spider-Villains, present and future: do not attempt to kill Spider Man with blunt force trauma. At one point in this movie, Spider Man is tied down to a girder at a construction site and pounded by a 50 foot Sandman with the psychokinetically induced consistency of concrete. Ten minutes later Spider Man is on his feet and back in the fight. Even Hulk Hogan can't regenerate damage that quickly.



• Evil Peter Parker likes an emo hairstyle. Who knew?



• The fight scenes in the film were pretty laughable for the most part. Especially ridiculous was Harry Osborn's opening fight scene with Peter Parker. Osborn's trademark fight move is what I call the "Hackysack Attack". This is when Osborn repeatedly bounces Parker into the air or off nearby solid obstacles by slamming into him with his rocket-propelled skateboard, the idea being to keep Parker bouncing around in the air hitting things for as long as possible. It makes some sense -- keep your opponent off balance -- but it looks like something out of a video game instead of real combat.



• The much-admired dramatic love triangle of the film basically comes about because Peter Parker's girlfriend Mary Jane is, frankly, one stupid lady. Partly this is due to hypocrisy. For example, Mary Jane becomes jealous when Peter reveals that he is helping a female student in his class with her homework, but later in the film she gets a job as a waitress/singer in a jazz club. Female students in quantum mechanics class are gold-digging mantraps; male patrons of bars are perfectly respectable gentlemen. Got that?



• Speaking of Mary Jane, the most egregious plot hole in the entire film just happens to be her fault. Harry Osborn, in a bid to inflict emotional pain on Peter Parker before killing him, grabs Mary Jane and tells her to break up with Peter, cold turkey, if she wants to save him. And Mary Jane, who has apparently forgotten the simple fact that Peter Parker is Spider Man, goes ahead and does exactly what Osborn has told her to do!



• An alternative to the "sudden-onset, highly specific amnesia theory" is that Mary Jane, in order to protect Osborn from Peter's reaction to being dumped, calculated that she might drain Peter of the emotional will to confront Osborn by dumping Peter in the most sudden and emotionally painful way imaginable. Of course, Mary Jane is later completely baffled and offended that Peter would bring his new girlfriend from quantum mechanics class into her nightclub on a date. She must have thought Peter would still be weeping over his computer keyboard by the phone.



• Another alternative is that Mary Jane, being smarter than she looks, inferred that being "forced" to dump your boyfriend by a wealthy, handsome, single millionaire is the feminist equivalent of the golden ticket hidden inside of a Wonka Chocolate bar. That is, assuming she was going to dump Peter all along, receiving the threat from Osborn gave her "plausible deniability" in case she changed her mind later on.