Spider-Man 3. At first, it was all happy chatter between the two movie buffs as they made their way into the theater to see Spider-Man 3. Hours of polite exchanges about the previous Spider-Man movies did little to foreshadow the impending war of words that would follow this 2 hour and 20 minute excursion into the movie cave.

Afro Thunder and Disgruntled Dan have just returned from watching Spider-Man 3 with differing opinions about the merits of the movie. Here's what they had to say:

Like Juggling Chickens by Afro Thunder
I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by this movie especially since I had expected a movie with too many complex points and plots to follow. However, even though there was a lot to follow, I felt they did a good jump of juggling. The truth though is that you can juggle too much, or the juggling simply becomes ridiculous. For example, it’s impressive to see someone juggle 3-5 bowling pins, but watching some juggle 36 chickens seems excessive and while you feel they’ll drop at any moment, they stay suspended, but you know it’ll be impossible to stop. That’s kind of how this movie felt.

It was impressive from the beginning, watching them line up the chickens, pick them up and begin, but in the end, it wasn’t as satisfactory as you had wanted. Now, I’m tired of metaphors so I’m going to get straight to the point and that was that Spiderman 3 was excellent up until the end. Now, I’m going to spoil for anyone that’s reading this and hasn’t seen it, but for the most part, I’m not ruining it for my editor (who hasn’t seen it yet [laugh at him for me]). However I will say that the main strong points I felt this movie hit were kick ass characters, that had fantastic CGI added to their already intimidating features. But along with that, I felt the movie did a great job of actually having a plot to follow, unlike the others, where I felt that the plots were so spread about that only thin threads kept them together. Along with this, I felt that the cinematography was greater than in the previous films, with greater angles and shots producing a less mundane movie, and by changing the angles from the usual chest to head shots, they incorporated greater body shots, even when people weren’t doing anything. I also felt that the characters did a good job of taking emotions out of you, where as in the last films, it was just kind of a kicked back drama, there was some real heavy s*** in this one. Betrayal, cheating, test of will, vengeance, deceit, death, rejection, humiliation, and so much more that simply made you say, “S*** that’s messed up.” And then you cry.

Now, since Spiderman is a Marvel character, that automatically means he’s delved into emotional crap everyday, but unlike other Marvel heroes, he’s a young man with so many different things going and coming for him. Now unlike the X-Men, who’s characters do end up in some messed up love triangles and some of the biggest betrayal, I think that since Spiderman is so focused on one person, it helps hone some of those emotions in, instead of having them spread out. Marvel characters are Miserably, Awfully, Ridiculously, Vindicated Emotion Losers and this is why they are so likeable, because they’re just like us. Even in our greatest times, we can still find something wrong and that can tear us apart, but life for these people is accelerated because they have powers to add to their problems.

But back to the movie. It was fine throughout, with some of the greatest comic book movie fight scenes and as stated before, kick ass villains, but the end was just not plausible. Now, this actually started about 2/3 into the movie in which it felt like Peter was going through a dream sequence, but it wasn’t, it was just cheesy. Now, it ended pretty cheesy, but it’s not so much because it was impossible to end it with a bang, but because the plot was already so screwed over that it was fairly difficult to make it seem reasonable or visible. But it was there, and it only needed an extra hand in opening it. For the most it was alright, with some kick assery delved here and there, but the truth is that the ending is just as important as the rest, if not more, and they missed, thus, Spiderman gets a 3.5 of 5.

Disgruntled Dan Denounces SM3 by Disgruntled Dan
Well folks I, disgruntled Dan, have returned to my throne of rage. I will tell u I return against my will, and I am forced to write these reviews. So please help me! On a lighter note, I will review spider man … 3! Well the movie was good off the bat, nice open credits, great special effects and acting. But sadly the bad part is half way thru the movie it got pretty bad. If u haven’t seen the movie don’t read this part of my review and take my word that half way thru it got worse, but only went from amazing to alright. SPOILER ALERT! When peter gets the black suit and walks down the street with his collar up, and dancing and s**t it appeared semi dream like, way to cheesy even for the whitest person. So u think its not enough to hate, not really, a good movie? Well then the ending sucked, had that crappy scene when peter and MJ hugged just so the movie wouldn’t end in a funeral like the first one. In closing they also f**ked up the story, Venom shouldn’t die, Eddie shouldn’t die, and sand man had nothing to do with uncle Ben, Gwen should be pushing up daisy’s and Harry needs to be tripin on acid.