SPIDER-MAN 3
Grade: D+

What happened? That’s the first and most important question that must be answered about Spider-Man 3. In 2004, the first Spidey sequel set a new standard for the superhero genre and proved that comic book movies could be more than spandex and supervillains: They could also be stories that work as well on a dramatic level as on a fanciful level. They could be home to characters we care about, and be written, directed, and acted by individuals who respect their story enough to invest it with real humanity.

So what happened?

Spider-Man 3 is to the web-slinger what Batman & Robin was to the dark knight. It’s a mess. What leaves me slack-jawed in disbelief is how this film could possibly have been perpetrated by the same creative team who three years ago made arguably the best superhero movie since the original Superman. This film isn’t just bad in regard to its predecessor. It’s bad in regard to all films. It pains me to have to call it the worst film I’ve seen so far this year, and I’ve seen Perfect Stranger!

Its biggest failures are at the screenplay level. It was written by Alvin Sargent along with Ivan Raimi and Sam Raimi; the Raimis are credited with the story. In addition to penning Spider-Man 2, Sargent has won two writing Oscars: for Ordinary People and Julia. But the screenplay for this film doesn’t suggest a writer of Sargent’s experience — or Sam or Ivan’s experience for that matter. There’s a gracelessness to the way the story is structured that is amateurish to the point of ineptitude.

One story involves Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), an escaped convict with an sick daughter. He steals to pay for her treatment and in the process was also responsible for the death of Peter Parker’s uncle in the first film. While evading capture, he falls into a pit where scientists are performing an experiment that turns him into the Sandman. What is this experiment? Well, it starts when a machine that looks like a giant electric mixer stirs up dust. Flint is trapped inside the vortex, and presto! When he wakes up in the morning, he’s composed entirely of sand particles.

What are the rules of being a sand creature? They’re never quite clear. Sometimes he’s a giant, while at other times he’s person-sized. Sometimes he can fly, but when fighting with Spider-Man he tends to fall — hard. Sometimes his body is solid, but other times it’s porous.

More importantly, what kind of experiment turns a man into a sand creature? If I were the Sandman, rather than hijack armored cars I would make a beeline to the laboratory to find out what happened to me and how to reverse it. Is the experiment intended to create sand creatures? If not, then it’s one hell of a side effect. But the screenplay never addresses it, and Flint is never remotely curious about his origin, so for the rest of the film the experiment remains a dangling plot thread, ridiculous and inexplicable.

Another story involves Harry Osborn (James Franco), who still harbors a grudge against Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) for killing his father. Poor James Franco, a talented actor who proved to be a talented writer and director as well with his Tribeca Film Festival entry, Good Time Max — he’s saddled with the worst character arc of the film. Very early in the film is a dramatic fight through Manhattan between him and Spider-Man. The result is a nasty bump on the head and amnesia — suddenly, Harry is a nice guy again ... but not for long! In that manner, he ricochets between good and evil throughout the film, his shifts dictated less by character than by the demands of the plot.

Harry has an Alfred-esque butler who dotes on him. At one point, the butler reveals a piece of vital information that is preposterous for two reasons: (1) For the butler to know what he knows, he’d have to be moonlighting on the set of CSI, and (2) If he has known the truth all along, there is no credible reason for him to have waited so long to reveal it. This revelation exists only to produce another shift in Harry, because the screenplay is too lazy and time-strapped to earn it.

The last major storyline involves a parasitic organism that must attach to a host to survive. After crashing to Earth in a meteorite, it bonds with Peter Parker. His physics professor (Dylan Baker) explains that it heightens aggression; through a microscope, we see one of its cells bouncing around, bullying the smaller cells around it. “That molecule is a dick!” my brother observed. And how!

When the alien possesses Peter, he turns into a blustery, swaggering jerk. He struts down the street in an apparent homage to Saturday Night Fever and looks like he’s auditioning to front an emo band. Are we supposed to take Evil Peter seriously? These scenes play like a bad joke.

The film clumsily balances its various elements. There are too many stories and characters for any of them to be properly developed, and none of them gel. Characters enter and exit the story apropos of nothing. It’s as if Raimi & Company wanted to cram ideas for Spider-Man 4, 5, and 6 into this film in case they never get the chance to make another one.

It leads to a climax that squanders my remaining patience. The villains team up to destroy Peter Parker, setting a trap that is so hastily introduced by the script that it feels as though even the filmmakers have given up. The final battle is so destructive that I can’t help but question the parental fitness of the bystanders, who have brought their children to watch the carnage like it’s New Year’s Eve in Times Square. They whoop and holler in a way more befitting an amusement park ride — or a really bad commercial for an amusement park ride. The reporters covering the battle are garish caricatures of reporters; they say inane things like “Could this be the end of Spider-Man?” I roll my eyes.

Partly as a result of the poor storytelling, the action falls flat; we’re asked to invest in battles between characters we haven’t been made to care about. But the visual effects also let us down. A malfunctioning crane cuts through a high-rise building, but it never looks convincing. Harry and Peter have two frenetic confrontations, but they’re so choppily shot and edited that everything is a vague blur. And the two effects-heavy villains, Sandman and Venom, look too much like cartoons. (There is one exception: Early in the film, Sandman holds a locket with his daughter’s picture, and the animation of his granulated face expresses real humanity.)

This film is beneath the talents of virtually everyone involved. I can’t say what might have possessed them to make the film that they did, knowing that they’re capable of making a much better one. If the time comes for Spider-Man 4, I only hope that they do what I intend to do: Put this film behind them — far behind them.