Constructive criticism: Spider-Man 3

Ah yes... Spider-Man, one of my favourite marvel superheroes.

I remember that there was talk about making a live action Spider-Man in the early nineties and James Cameron was gonna direct it. Some time later in the early twothousands I started to get confirmation that a live action Spider-Man movie was indeed in production. (Directed by Sam Raimi though, but he directed Darkman, which I liked, so he seemed like a good pick.)

Before this there had been mostly DC in the cinema when it came to comicbook superhero movies, and pretty much only of two of the most wellknown heroes DC had, Superman and Batman. And it was mostly Batman. In both cases the franchises started good but got dumber and worse with every sequel. It seemed like Hollywood just couldn`t make good superhero movies.

Then an X-Men movie came out. Maybe not perfect but at least it understood the sourcematerial. Then came the Spider-Man movies. After waiting for ten years was it everything I hoped it would be? Not quite to be honest, but don`t get me wrong, I did like it and it was good. It had all the basic things that Spider-Man should have; webswinging, a colourful supervillain (both metaphorically AND literally), Mary Jane, Aunt May, Uncle Ben, fights, people being saved, badassery and great powers followed by great responsibility.

I would have preferred a different look for Green Goblin though. Give him a costume closer to the comics, but with pants instead of bare legs.

Then came the sequel and I liked it even more, it felt like the logical next step for the characters of the first movie to take.

Then came the third movie... maybe not bad per se but it felt like a step down from the second movie. If you like it I can understand, it has some redeeming qualities but still... it had more subplots and characters than it knew what to do with. It seemed like Hollywood, once again, just couldn`t make good superhero movies.

Lose them. 

As much as I like Gwen, she wasn`t necessary for the story. She was only there so that MJ could get jealous, and it just feels like a step down from how MJ was written in Spider-Man 2.

A part of me thinks that Topher Grace was a bad choice for playing Eddie Brock. I would have prefered a little older actor because I think that the idea of Eddie competing against Peter, a much younger and more successful photographer, would only add more fuel to his inferiority complex that would drive him to become Venom. On the other hand: Maybe Topher Grace would have been better as Eddie if the script had been better. 

So: either keep Topher Grace or replace him with (and this is just some of my personal picks) Jeremy Renner or Nathan Fillion.

The beginning is pretty close to the beginning of the movie that we got: things are going well for Peter and he goes to see MJ perform on stage. In my version however her performance isn`t singing but acting. She performs in a stage version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (she plays a supporting role, but it`s a wellwritten and important role). After the show is over Pete congratulates MJ and meets Harry Osborn who he tries to reason with but Harry is still hellbent on revenge. Before Pete meets Aunt May to tell her that he plans to propose to MJ he bumps in to Eddie Brock who is in a hurry and doesn`t have time to chat with him because he`s "chasing a big scoop". A masked terrorist named Sin-Eater is mentioned a few times on newspaper headlines, he`s kinda like the unabomber in this universe. (Yes, Sin-Eater is gonna be in this one, but he doesn`t play a big part.) Pete gets attacked by Harry Osborn and they fight, but instead of Harry knocking himself out and losing his memory he chases Pete into an abandoned old building that he demolishes with lots of grenades. There`s no sign of Pete in what`s left of the building but Harry knows that he must`ve escaped.

Since Harry knows Pete`s secret identity Pete knows that Harry might use his loved ones to get to him, so he tells MJ to get out of town with Aunt May. MJ reluctantly agrees to this and tells Aunt May that she thinks it would be good for them to get a little time of their own for a little female bonding. They leave early the next morning.

Later that evening at Pete`s apartment: Peter collpapses on his bed after a long day. The black goo that attached itself to his moped on his date with MJ (Yes, I`m going with the movie`s version of how that happened.) comes out of the shadows and devours Pete.

Pete doesn`t like what he just did, he almost killed that man. Criminal or not, that`s just something that he shouldn`t do. Could it be the suit? Is it making him more aggressive?

But then the suit clouds his judgement and he tells himself that he has everything under control, what happened was just a one-time thing.

The next day the police arrests the terrorist who turns out to be that Sin-Eater that has been mentioned in the news. Since Sin-Eater has been caught Brock reveals to Jonah what "the big scoop" that he chased earlier was. All this time Brock had been telephone-interviewing Sin-Eater who had told him a lot about his life-philosophy and about how "decadent he thinks our secular society is". Jonah likes it, it`s extremely in depth. Brock could win the Pulitzer prize for it. Hearing this makes Brock beam with pride.

That same evening Spidey is out webswinging and runs into Harry. They fight. At one point Harry uses a sonic grenade and here`s where we learn that the black suit is vulnerable to loud noises. Spidey gets the upper hand, goes really violent and almost beats Harry to death. Harry manages to escape and all of this has been caught by a guy with a video camera. It later ends up on the late news and is seen by MJ. Once again Pete feels bad for going too far and once again the suit makes him think that it wasn`t a big deal.

The next day Brock`s interview is published in the Bugle. Jonah congratulates him in his office when Brock`s phone suddenly rings. It`s Sin-Eater! But wait a sec, isn`t he in jail? Maybe he used his one phone call to call Brock? But then Brock (and Jonah) finds out that the man calling doesn`t know that Sin-Eater is in jail, the man calling isn`t even Sin-Eater! All this time Brock was interviewing a mentally ill man who pretended to be Sin-Eater. (The man also has no TV or easy access to the news paper, that`s why he didn`t knew that the real S-E was behind bars.) This is bad! Todays newspaper has already been printed! Jonah fires a distraught Eddie Brock.

Later that day MJ comes to Peter`s apartment. (Yes, Pete told her and May to stay out of the city to be safe from Harry, but right now Harry`s not much of a threat compared to Pete.) She saw Spidey`s and Harry`s fight on the news and thinks that he went too far. They start to argue and Peter pushes MJ into the wall... just as Aunt May walks in and sees it. Pete realizes what he`s done and runs out of his apartment to be alone.
He sits on top of a building to think, sees a church and gets an idea. He uses the loud noise from the churchbells to rid himself of the alien suit. Eddie Brock happens to be in the same church at the time. After the suit has been separated from Pete it looks for a new host and finds Eddie... who turns into Venom.

Pete returns home to his apartment (with clothes that he has taken from some church-charity thing) where May and MJ are waiting. (It`s his apartment after all and they don`t have the key, so they can`t leave it unlocked.) After some talking MJ forgives Pete and a few minutes later May does the same. After this Pete (as Spidey) swings over to Harry to patch things over with him as well. (He is of course smart enough to realize that it`s not gonna be a walk in the park.) When they meet we see that Harry`s face has been damaged from their latest fight and He doesn`t want to reconcile with him. He doesn`t want to fight him either but he wants him to get the hell away from his property.

Somewhere else: Venom kidnaps Jonah, takes him to a construction site and soon gets Pete`s attention thanks to the news.

Spidey suits up, swings to the site and tries to reason with Eddie, but Eddie won`t listen. He says that he and the suit has a "symbiotic relationship" and after that he starts to refer to himself in plural ("we" and "us"). He knows that Spider-Man is Peter because the suit told him that. Spidey and Venom fight. After a few blows have been delivered Eddie says to Spidey: "Can`t sense when I`m coming, can you? That`s right! The suit knows all about your little extra warning sense! And it knows how to not trigger it!"

Harry sees their fight on the news. Spidey manages to incapacitate Venom long enough to break away from the fight and rescue Jonah. But then Venom gets the upper hand and knocks Spidey out. He`s about to kill Spidey when... Harry comes to the rescue! Harry and Venom fight, Spidey manges to regain consciousness just in time to see... Venom stabbing Harry with his own hoverboard! Spidey fights Venom and defeats him (or "them) the same way he did it in the movie. (Harry is strong enough to still be alive, he pulls out a grenade that he throws to Spidey that Spidey throws at the symbiote.) Eddie isn`t desintegrated by the blast, just knocked unconscious by it. Pete and Harry say their good byes and Harry dies with peace in his heart.

The next day Peter visits Aunt May, gives her the ring back and says that he`s not ready to marry MJ yet, maybe some day but not in a near future. The next day Pete, MJ and Aunt May go to Harry`s funeral. Next we see MJ and Pete (in Spider-Man costume but without the mask on) on the roof of a tall building staring at the sunset.

The End

Mid credit scene: Eddie is in the hospital in a coma. We get a re-play of the moment when the explosion killed the symbiote and knocked him out. A close up shows that a small piece of the symbiote managed to escape. Back to Eddie in the hospital: the symbiote is outside his window, it sneaks in and devours him. We get a close up of one of his eyes as he wakes up from the coma.

Yes, I know, my version is not much better than the official version. Even in this one Venom doesn`t appear until the third act. But with Sandman and other distractions gone we at least get more time to explore Eddie and understand his goals and motivations.