Aug 30
I don’t normally do these sort of retrospective reviews, but with Spider-Man: No Way Home getting an exciting new extended rerelease this week, I thought I’d take a look back at the Spider-Man film that has been difficult for me to revisit and come to terms with. There are many things that producer Avi Arad did to plague this film’s narrative, and of course his biggest mistake was forcing Sam Raimi to include the increasingly popular Venom as the main villain. There was already an engrossing story set in motion with the tension between Harry and Peter over the death of Norman Osborn that was built up by the past two movies which could have led to a proper second Green Goblin (Harry Osborn) like in the comics. Even Sandman who was played very well by Thomas Haden Church had a compelling enough motivation for being a supporting villain with his dying daughter despite the questionable decision to retcon the details of Uncle Ben’s murder. The weight of having three villains who were never previously established only adds to the convoluted mess of a story on top of the already complicated love triangle. It was clear that Harry was going to the be primary antagonist but was sidelined to squeeze in Venom at the last minute, when comic book fans know that the black suit/Venom saga isn’t something that gets rushed through. Topher Grace was painfully miscast as Eddie Brock/Venom, and never felt like the eerie threat he did in the 90s animated series, Spectacular Spider-Man, and the comics. It is worth noting that some of the CGI fight scenes particularly Harry vs Peter’s first fight look worse than Spider-Man 2’s CGI. I absolutely don’t blame Tobey, James, Topher, Kirsten, Thomas or any of the other actors for the hackneyed dialogue and botched studio job. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really great moments in this movie such as Spidey’s swinging sequences, Peter’s talks with Aunt May, Stan Lee’s iconic cameo, and Sandman’s redemption, but it never comes together as one cohesive piece and I’m happy that Sony was able to learn from their mistakes with the more recent Spider-Man installments both animated and live action.
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