Cauldron

Issue date: 5/15/07 Section: A & E

Media Credit: Columbia Pictures Alter egos make for an interesting twist in the latest edition of the Spiderman trilogy, which pits Peter Parker against himself as well as three other villains.

A sequel is always a risky proposition. An original movie's freshness and creativity has a pretty short half-life, rarely surviving a second incarnation-let alone a third. Still, I entered "Spiderman III" with high hopes. It's a blockbuster about a superhero. How hard could it be?

The movie is a lot of things. It is funny, exciting and slickly produced. But it lacks that certain X factor that would pull those elements together and make any of them memorable. It has no heart-but the special effects are cool.

In this third incarnation of Spiderman, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has fallen deeply in love with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) and intends to propose. Alter-ego Spiderman, on the other hand, is a local celebrity. All seems to be going well for Peter, until a series of events start to tear his life apart.

First, Parker seriously hurts Mary-Jane, who is struggling in her own career as a Broadway singer and is somewhat jealous of Spidey's success. Then, he discovers that the police made a mistake in their original investigation of his uncle's death, and that the real killer is still at large. Finally, Parker's job as a newspaper photographer is threatened when a newcomer, Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), is offered a position that would make Peter's job obsolete if Brock can shoot incriminating photos of Spiderman.

As his personal life falls apart, Parker is infected by alien venom that transforms the sweet-natured hero into a vindictive, unkind, highly aggressive, leather-wearing character that has more in common with Spidey's villains than with Spidey himself. This element of the movie was by far the most entertaining, but I had a hard time suspending my disbelief. The spectacle of Tobey Maguire walking down the street dancing to disco music playing in his own head and whistling at every girl that walks by was amusing. But, frankly, I didn't buy it.

As if this personal plot-line were not convoluted enough, each villain in this everlasting epic has his own back-story. Each tale explains how the evildoer turned bad, and why the audience should pity him. This would be tolerable except that there are three villains: New Goblin (James Franco), Venom and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church).

Continued...

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