Spider Man III: Aesthetic Opus, or Bricolage Mishap?
While I don't usually subscribe to the Action Hero genre, I did attend the newest instalment of Sam Raimi's SpiderMan series. Back in 2002, Kate and I were looking for something fun to see as a date, not that we're that typical in our dating habits... ok, we are. Anyway, since then, each new Spiderman has been something of a tongue-in-cheek event for us. So, before my memory of the movie evaporates into the vacuous wasteland in which I put most other Hollywood spectacles, a few thoughts.
This Spiderman is certainly more adventurous that the first two in 2 ways (or, at least, I only noticed two - remember, it was a date). From the beginning of the movie, the audience is introduced to classic music and staging, recalling the age of Swing and Fred Astaire musicals. Raimi even goes so far to have Mary Jane walking down a circular staircase in a white satin gown, a hat tip to era pieces like Ziegfield's Follies. And the swinging-ness doesn't end there.
Enter the New Goblin, and then Sandman, and then Topher Grace, and then problems with Mary Jane... blah blah. Anyway, the second theme of the movie - memory - makes its first entrance with its dissappearance, that is Harry Osborn's amnesia from his short fight with Spiderman. This amnesia leads to a complete turn in Harry's behavior: he takes up painting, smiling, cooking, anything lighthearted enough to make him seem happy-go-lucky enough to distinguish him sharply from his father's alter-ego.
Whereas Harry forgets, Peter's memory haunts him. He seems incredulous that Harry has forgotten his former hatred. Then, he becomes obsessed with finding his uncle's killer. He has visions of his uncle's death, and his culpability in it. His vices win out when finally they congeal, represented by a substance from space that looks conspicuously like the X-Files' Black Oil. His clothes himself in his guilt, becoming the audacious Black Spiderman. He initially finds the increase in testosterone, or real-super-powers, maybe both, exhilirating. However, it blinds him to the plight of others. After he thinks he's killed the Sandman, he looses all sense of himself and becomes a cabaret-esque jigilo.
The dance scene is amazing; not so much for its artistry. Rather, this entire segment (on Peter's new, hubristic relationship to the world) seems so incongruous to the rest of the trilogy. Peter's dance is so frenetic, so Disney, that I couldn't help but laugh through the whole thing. It's at the same time both ridiculous and radical, like a scene from Jim Carey's Mask fused to a dance in Cabaret. Of course, Peter becomes disgusted with this new self, and attempts to shed his guilt by ripping the black suit from himself. However, the suit won't be silenced, and latches on to another, one so obsessed with revenge that he is in a church praying to God that he kill Peter Parker.
While the movie is clearly cheesey at times, and indulges in the spectacle throughout, there are certainly some insightful elements (I guess I'm thinking like a high school teacher here) that could be useful for demonstrating sometimes hard to grasp concepts like the communal nature of sin, the long term effects of habits (Peter's increasing aggression and jigilo-ness as he chooses to use the black suit more often), and the power of memory in making ethical decisions... and maybe the importance of real church bells instead of recordings in fighting off evil black substances from other planets!
