The OtherArena

[Steve Yohe]

I saw SPIDER-MAN 3 last night at the Thursday night show & I think they're selling the public a really bad movie. The crowd was a Spider-Man fanboy type that was hot to see it. Fanboy type but mainly Mexican. Theirs a scene where Dunst kisses the Franco badguy & the whole theater turned on her. Just boo'ed the hell out of her. And then wimmpy ass Maguire has two scenes where he cries because his girlfriend dumps him and the crowd just went nuts making fun of him. I've never seen a fanboy crowd turn on a movie like that.....and they were right. It sucks. Really bad CG effects mix with really really really long bad soap-opera crap. And Spider-Man hardly wairs the mask. He fight the badguys as Parker as much as Spider-Man. The producers paid for movie stars so they have to show their face all thur the movie. The villians do the same. Hated this movie but I also hated the first two...so consider the source.---Yohe

[Jeremy Billones]

My sister knew the movie was going to suck ass when they cast a redhead to play Gwen Stacy. And she isn't even a Spidey fan.

(Cheetah can tell you the amount of swearing I've done about the trilogy.)

[Frank_Jewett]

I'm with Yohe. Watching the second movie was like reading a _really bad_ comic book. Most of the scenes had no depth, plausibility, or meaningful dialog. They had a trivial message that could have been captured by a quick sketch without the need for live action and the expectations that (should) come with film.

One example (from many) was the scene where Tobey was walking down a busy sidewalk, witnessed a mugging in an alley, and turned away. The point that he saw a mugging and did nothing was on par with the communication in a low end comic book. Two or three boxes, no dialog, and the audience gets the message: He saw a crime and did nothing.

The problem with doing that in a movie is that Tobey was walking down a three dimensional street on a busy sidewalk with dozens of other people. Somehow not one of those people saw the mugging. Even better, those people fell through the WWE ringside trap door and didn't even appear in the frame. Suddenly live action Tobey was virtually alone in his frame.

Comic book writers are generally smart enough to avoid showing the busy street before rolling out the three frame vignette. Unfortunately Sam Raimi wasn't bright enough to choose between doing a real movie and doing a comic book homage, instead trying to mesh the two together in a way that sold both genres short. I found Spidey 2 unwatchable.

Frank

[The Greatest Man Alive]

Entire theater I was in turned on this as well. Nearly as bad as 2, and it was sub Soap Opera level acting in most scenes. Sadly, the comedy cool jazz scene was the only thing worth watching. Utterly horrible again.

[jdw]

I get the feeling that this won't have massive legs. It is going to do massive opening weekend, and perhaps a very strong second weekend (people skipping the first weekend rush and catching the second weekend)... unless the word of mouth kills off the people waiting.

But Opening Day was a record. It's going to pull in $110M+ over the opening weekend, and perhaps top Pirates opening weekend record. One wonders if this if going to be like the X-Men movies (big opening weekends from the fanboys, but not the legs to get to $300M), or Matrix-2 (monster opening weekend, then everyone realizing it sucks).


John

[Bob Morris]

What Spidey 3 also seems to be proving is that popular movies that get two seqeuls often lose a great amount of steam by the third sequel. Star Trek and James Bond may be exceptions, but only because those series had more than three movies

But Star Wars and X-Men were the two off the top of my head that fizzled by the time the third movie hit the theaters. And as I recall, the Godfather was the same way.

We'll see if either Shrek or Pirates can break the "third movie" curse. No doubt both will do huge numbers in their opening weekends, but the question is whether they'll have legs.

[eron]

Shrek won't. Shrek 3 looks horrible. I got a lot more confidence in Pirates 3, only because the story (from what I got out of the trailers, all the pirates banding together against the East India Trading company and Davey Jones) seems to have a very epic feel.

Spider-Man 3 was too much, too soon. Venom should have been Spiderman 4. There are talks that Spiderman 4 will actually include Carnage with a PG-13 rating. What the hell!? This is the problem with the Venom/Carnage series. People who were fanboys of the comics in the mid 90's expect major blood and violence. They won't get it.

I honestly liked X-Men III. I think Ratner feared his own ability and made it a little too short. It could have, and should have, been a longer movie (Much like Smokin' Aces. I don't care what anyone says, great ending). Didn't Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade break that third film stigma, or is that an exception to the rule?

[Frank_Jewett]

A Woody-less Diane gives one of many blank stares

Godfather III was too many years later to be considered a true sequel and Coppola did his best to fuck up the franchise with his disjointed production.

Casting Sofia was bad, but in a way it was an homage to the horrid acting of Talia Shire and Diane Keaton. Shire and Keaton didn't ruin the first two films, though some of their scenes have become cringe inducing with age and the films wouldn't miss them if they were completely cut. (Case in point: Tom's scene with Michael over the death of his unborn son is more powerful and effective than Kay telling Michael it was an abortion.)

The real killer was refusing to pay Robert Duvall's asking price, yet leaving a massive gap in the storyline to allow for his insertion if his demands turned out to be a bluff. Duvall didn't fold, so Coppola wrote additional scenes for clueless, scene chewing self-parody George Hamilton. (Case in point: Pacino counsels Hamilton to be diplomatic in one scene, then Hamilton launches into an over-the-top tirade in the very next scene, as if Coppola accidently reversed the order of the scenes.)

Ultimately the failure of Godfather III is down to a weak storyline and a weak central figure, a hopelessly henpecked and flaccid Al Pacino, whose life is now being run by the idiot sister and the weak, naive wife that he dominated in the earlier films. No explanation is given for why he fell, or better yet why these women, if they have any redeeming value, chose to stay near Michael. That the trio's acting skills had eroded or been exposed over the years didn't help, either.

Frank

[The Greatest Man Alive]

Just look at the writers on the three films. On 1 they used David Koepp. 2 used Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Michael Chabon and Alvin Sargent. 3 was written by Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent. That should have told everyone enough before it was even released.

[sideswipe70]

When Spider-Man came out, I can remember arguing with Jeremy about whether they should have gone with the Death of Gwen Stacy storyline. Jeremy was in favour of it, adn I was against it. After seeing Spider-Man 3, I apologize to Jeremy. To throw Stacy out there and to use her as an underdeveloped mirror of Mary Jane was pretty sad and if they weren't going to use her in a significant way, then they should not have used her at all and instead they should have put her in the first movie.

Jason

[Steve Yohe]

Does anyone read the old stuff? OK does anyone really read the new stuff? This was from 13 years ago. I thought it was fun how everyone agreed.--Yohe