If you can get beyond the cheesy opening, the improbable hot scientist chicks with clipboards chewing their pens in the radiation lab, the inexplicably English airhead TV reporter who won’t stop barking the bleedin’ obvious into her mike all through the denouement, the snaggletoothed Kirsten Dunst singing flat, and, most of all, the deeply disturbing idea of making out in the sticky goo of a giant spider’s web (and, let’s face it, lots of otherwise horny arachnophobes
will never get beyond this), there’s a lot to be said for Spiderman 3, and even more to be read into, geopolitically speaking.
First, let’s get the obligatory review stuff out of the way. Spiderman 3 is a terrific spectacle, great entertainment, and scary enough to guarantee your kids will soil their Spidey costumes. The visual effects are a knockout, the soundtrack is top-notch, Tobey Maguire is tremendous – this is a hugely 21st Century film. It’s also very funny in parts, as if the producers brought in comics for three scenes then dumped them back onto their barstools for the allegorical stuff.
The plot is a smidge disjointed – multiple villains, united only in their frustration with Spidey’s maddening habit of pooping their various parties, keep reappearing about fifteen minutes and several scenes after a seemingly fatal confrontation with the hero – but this matters not a jot. The storyline relentlessly flashes back to Spiderman I and II, which can get repetitive, if you’re looking for something to complain about. Mary Jane (Dunst) is still unbelievably annoying, and now jealous of Spiderman’s success (as I said,
very 21st Century). Peter Parker’s best pal, the slightly slow rich kid Harry, still can’t stop whinging about the death of Willem Defoe, his father – and has now taken to therapeutic Cézanne copying. And the death of Peter’s maddeningly honest uncle Ben remains the thread that holds the franchise together.
Which is where it gets weird. At risk of adding a spoiler warning, it turns out that Spidey’s uncle was shot and killed because America has no socialist healthcare system. Uncle Ben’s sandy killer – whose identity has conveniently shifted to keep things ticking over – explains why he bumps people off and tears up Manhattan:
"My daughter was dying. I needed the money. I was scared."
One man’s hospital bills are killing New Yorkers. We are shown Flint Marko’s (aka Sandman’s) cute daughter with breathing apparatus lodged up her nostrils. All he wants is to get his kid the treatment she needs – and the only way he can do this is to knock off cash-loaded security vans and slaughter whoever is in his path. A world where a muscleman refuses to get a job needs a superhero.
Meanwhile, a meteorite oozing with some evil black stuff lands in the Big Apple and hunts after Spidey. It catches up with him, and turns him bad. Spidey’s suit turns black. So does his hair. It’s the same plot as Superman III, though less silly. The scene in which a stubble-covered, dirty-caped Superman perches on a barstool, shooting whisky, is, unintentionally, one of the funniest in movie history.
Spiderman 3 never quite plumbs such depths. The point about Spidey’s dark turn is explained by an online poll on the official website:
Can a man confront the forces of darkness without giving in to them? Yes/No
When I looked, 77% of visitors had voted ‘Yes’, which means only 23% of people would join Al Qaeda if they were forced to confront the evildoers. Hmmm…
Anyway, that, in a spider’s eggshell, is what this film is about: Can America defeat the forces of terror without building nude pyramids in Abu Ghraib? … No, sorry, that’s another issue. Spiderman 3 is far more explicit. Auntie May tells Peter that “revenge is like a poison” and insists Uncle Ben “wouldn’t want us living for one second with revenge in our hearts” (he’d want them dead?). As office workers fall from Manhattan’s crumbling skyscrapers and Peter fails to comprehend the French maître d’s “bon chance!”, the reference to the War on Terror will hardly be missed by your kid in his baggy-in-the-seat Spidey costume.
So what, then, is Spiderman’s strategy for the War on Terror? I’m not entirely sure of my ground here, but I think it involves a good sprinkling of forgiveness and a large spoonful of capitulation. The original Spiderman movie, an eager friend of mine insists, was infused with the spirit of the Aeneid (or Adenoid, as my computer spellchecker would have it). The message of the first two instalments was “with great power comes great responsibility”. This was not to suggest that Peter Parker need use his powers ‘proportionately’; it just meant he had to use his powers in whatever way necessary, and so quit hanging out at the mall with teenage girls in low-cut tops. But that was then. Spidey III is war-weary. Three major lessons are drawn in the finale:
First, never humiliate your enemy, for he will quickly humiliate you back, and then we’ll all get caught in a vicious cycle of humiliation (etc.). Peter/Spidey makes this mistake with Eddie Brock, a singularly obnoxious squirt who nicks Parker’s photography job at the newspaper by photoshopping some snaps of Spidey knocking off a bank. Peter exposes him, rightly gets him fired, steals his big-chested girlfriend, shoves him up against a wall and tells him, “If you want forgiveness, get a religion.” The result of this ‘error’ is that, weirdly, Brock heads to the local church, kneels in front of Christ, and says, “I want you to kill Peter Parker.” Christ doesn’t deliver, but Brock gets gunged by Spidey’s evil black stuff and turns into Venom, a nasty little screaming shit of a villain who can’t bear the sound of church bells (you’ll just have to go see it), and sets about slaying Pete himself.
Second, not even America… sorry, not even Spiderman can act unilaterally against multiple enemies. We are treated to a multilateral finale, in which Spidey saves the day (in front of a crisp Stars and Stripes) thanks to the support of an ally, who is meant to represent… Who knows? In the real world nobody but America and the terrorists is serious about arming themselves.
Finally, and this is the big one, America must make more of an effort to understand its enemy. The concluding confrontation between Spidey and his uncle’s killer goes like this:
Uncle Killer: “I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just want you to understand.”
Spiderman: “I’ve done terrible things too. I forgive you.”
As a consequence of Spidey’s forgiveness, the baddy evaporates and becomes good. The lesson is obvious: Forgive Al Qaeda and they will just evaporate into thin air. Easy.
Not to read too much into it all, of course… There is quite a lot of the earthy, crunchy thing, though not enough to make it unbearable: Dunst disapprovingly refers to a blonde hottie’s “polished fingernails”; the silver-haired Auntie May revels in her lack of make-up and pathetically small diamond engagement ring; Peter uses a payphone in the hallway of his immigrant landlord’s slumhouse and in a moment of ‘badness’ complains about paying rent given how the door to his hovel never opens.
Indeed, Dunst’s MJ is a real moody cow and Peter/Spidey should dump her asap. She spends the whole film screwing up our superhero’s life and behaving like she’s on Oprah’s sofa. You know the form: “Try and understand how I feel. I look at these words [an honest review of her pitiful singing voice] and it’s like my father wrote them.”
Please don’t go there! The woman proceeds to cheat on Peter only minutes after breaking up with him, then triggers Harry’s (thankfully lost) memories and aids and abets Spidey’s enemy by luring Peter into a trap. Plus, this time there’s no wet t-shirt scene. Spidey can, and almost does, do better than this frump.
Ultimately, the film relies on you being the type of moviegoer who worries about American power and arrogance. If, like me, you have a crush on America’s cockey swagger, something strange happens: You end up preferring Spiderman when he is supposed to be ‘bad’ and feel disappointed when he returns to being a humble, unpaid do-gooder. The scenes when Spidey ‘turns to the dark side’ are the best fun of all, and hilariously played by Maguire. He becomes a dude, strutting and moonwalking down the sidewalk, letting his hair go floppy, picking up babes, playing jazz piano, beating up bouncers, and hanging out with blacks in jazz clubs! We are supposed to frown on his fun-time behaviour (and in the real world war, of course, the enemy certainly wouldn’t drink with curvy blondes in decadent jazz clubs…). But if this is supposed to represent America showing off to the world, reserve me a table at that gin joint. After all, what is the FX-laden blockbusting Spiderman III if not America showing off to the world? We love it, and Hollywood really must stop pretending it is something it is not.
© Dominic Hilton, 2007
