Spider-Man 3

A Disappointment!!!

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The Spiderman franchisee kicked off with brilliant first movie in 2002. It was followed by an even better and superb sequel in 2004. So it was with a lot of expectation that one went to see the third edition of this super hero franchisee. To be honest I consider the Spiderman series to be the best of all super hero adaptations released so far (although Batman Begins has raised hopes of rivaling it if it can follow through with an equally good sequel). I was looking forward to seeing how Raimi would keep the plot moving forward as he did in the previous sequel.

When the movie starts we find Peter Parker in total contentment with life. He is doing straight A-s at college. He is on the verge of proposing to his girlfriend, Mary Jane, who is also the star of a Broadway musical. He is adulated by the whole of New York City who even gives him the key to the city. But we know his bliss won’t last long as Spiderman will have deal with three formidable villains soon.

The first of these is an old friend itself – Harry Osborn, who still believes that Spiderman killed his father and therefore holds a grudge against him. Harry, who has inherited his father’s weapons and chemicals, becomes the new green goblin and indulges in a battle with Peter Parker. In the course of the battle Harry hurts his heads and begins to suffer from amnesia. This makes him become his normal likeable self. But before long he regains his memory and continues his quest to avenge his father.

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In the meantime a petty criminal named Flint Marko escapes from the prison. His daughter is gravely ill and he needs to arrange money for her treatment. While on the run from the police he stumbles into an experimental facility on particle physics and is transformed into sand thus becoming the Sandman. Peter Parker also learns that it was Marko who actually murdered his Uncle Ben. Thus Spiderman now begins to look out for the Sandman with vengeance in his heart.

The third villain enters the movie in the form of an alien symbiotic organism. While Peter Parker and Mary Jane are out on a date a small meteorite crashes nearby and the symbiotic organism oozes out of it and follows Peter home. There it bonds with Spiderman’s costume, thereby changing both the suit’s appearance as well Parker’s personality. It enhances his powers as well as his aggression. Spiderman later realizes the change and tries to get rid of the symbiote while at a church. Edie Brock, a rival photographer of Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle, is also at the church and discovers that Peter Parker is in fact Spiderman. The symbiote falls off from Spiderman’s body and takes over Edie Brock making him the villainous Venom.

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Will Spiderman overcome such formidable foes and how? What will happen to MJ’s and his relationship? The answer to all these questions forms the rest of the movie.

As someone who has been a fan of the franchise from its very beginning it was disappointing to see that it has come stuck in this edition and has not build or moved forward in any sense. It seems to be time for both Maguire and Raimi to let go of the series. There is nothing new in this edition that we haven’t seen before. Even the action sequences which are usually spectacular weren’t up to the mark in the second half of the movie. The climax was so uninspiring that the director even had to resort to a running commentary from a TV reported to make even mildly interesting. The best action sequence of the entire movie was the very first one between Spiderman and the new green goblin. When the first action sequence overshadows the climax, then you know something is wrong with the movie.

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The biggest flaw of the movie is the abundance of villains it has. Because of the three villains in the movie Raimi does not have either the space or the time to develop their characters and all of them seem to be a bit too hashed up. Their characters develop either too sudden or are totally incomplete. For any super hero movie to succeed there has to be a great playing out an equally great villain. Case in point is Jack Nicholson in Batman or Alfred Molina in Spiderman 2. But in this movie we do not have any such great scope for any decent actor. The only person who even had the slightest chance was Thomas Haden Church as Sandman. But even his character is rushed through the movie and is not properly developed. One minute he is fighting Spiderman and the next he is suddenly very remorseful of his actions, apparently with no rhyme or reason for it. He is almost reduced to a wimpy character rather than a villainous one.

But the biggest disappointment is venom. This is one character which should have deserved a separate movie all on its own. It was so disappointing to see the venom on screen for such a short period of time. Even the sequences which show Peter Parker’s personality as changed could have been done better. Instead we see Parker shaking his booty through the streets of New York, a poor cousin to Travolta in ‘Saturday Night Fever’.

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Some of the characters like Gwen Stacy are completely wasted and you are left wondering why she was there in the movie in the first place. Maguire clearly hams his way through the movie, especially the emotional scenes, and it was certainly the worst performance of the series. The other actors are too insignificant to make a difference.

The movie has its moments. Like the first action sequence or Marko’s transformation into Sandman. And overall you might be entertained from time to time. But the good parts are too short and far in between for it make a difference. Spiderman 3 is a colossal disappointment.

Malèna

The dark side of beauty

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Giuseppe Tornatore is one of those directors who takes charming nostalgic movies and strikes a chord in the heart of his audiences. He mostly makes period movies set in a small town of Sicily. Malena released in 2000 is said through the eyes of 12-year old Renato and is set in a 1940s small town of Sicily. Renato’s focus of attention is the most beautiful woman in the town, Malèna.

The story starts with an adult Renato remembering the day he got his first bicycle. The adult Renato narrates the events to us through a voiceover. The day Renato gets the bicycle is the day he is shown ogling at Malèna for the first time. In the beginning his feelings for her are purely lustful. For a boy who is just entering puberty this means that his hormones go haywire and his only concern becomes the goings on in his trousers. This makes the first half of the movie mostly funny to watch.

We also learn that it is not just Renato who has his eye on the voluptuous bombshell. The whole town has their eyes on Malèna for various reasons. You see, she is the wife of a soldier who has gone off to fight the Second World War. Hence the men of the town ogle and fantasize about taking advantage of this single woman. The women of the town are afraid that she will take their husbands away from them. And all of them resort to vile gossiping about her. The whole town indulgences in this when she takes cross town strolls dressed all elegant and glamorous.

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Renato is taken over by lust and follows Malèna around wherever she goes without her noticing him. He in the process learns more about Malèna and sees the real person that she is underneath all the glamour. For instance he learns that her regular strolls across the town are to visit her almost deaf father, a professor of Latin, to help him with his household chores. By peeping into her house from a nearby tree he is able to see her pain and loneliness. Above all he sees her unfaltering love for her husband. He sees that she is not the slut that the townsfolk make her out to be.

But thing take a turn for Malèna as the war intensifies. People become more angry and vile towards her. Rumours of her husband’s death only intensify their attitude towards her. She is shunned and isolated by the women of the town. Even her relationship with her father suffers a catastrophic blow when a slanderous letter about her sexual immorality reaches his hands. He is later killed in a German bombing of the town.

Thereafter Malèna falls into hard times and in a bit to survive she becomes what the town always called her to be; a slut. She turns to prostitution and begins to even entertain the members of the invading German army. However when the war ends and the Germans retreat she is mentally and physically humiliated by the town’s women forcing her to leave the town. It is then that her husband returns from the war. What he does after that forms the rest of the movie.

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On the face of it Malèna is a simple sentimental movie. By underlying it is the theme of jealousy and hypocrisy. The women of the town are not able to hide their jealousy toward Malèna. The men are a case of sour grapes. Since they are not able to have her they invent wild rumours and thrash her reputation without remorse. It is also a coming of age movie. The young Renato, who first sees Malèna as only a sexual object see her as a human being towards the end of the movie. In the process he also learns more about the cruelty of life.

The movies visuals are breathtaking every time Monica Bellucci walks on the screen. Beautiful would be a word too inadequate to describe how she looks in this movie. You can’t but help identify with the boy who fantasies about her all the time. She doesn’t even have anything to do for a majority of the movie other than to look great. She doesn’t even have a dialogue through major portions of the movie. But she shows that she is not just a beautiful face when she handles the complex final scenes with ease.

The young boy Giuseppe Sulfaro plays the other central character of the film Renato. He plays the role with a talent that belies his age. He displays the right emotions and leaves no one in doubt as to what is going through his head.

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Tornatore’s direction is creditable. He easily gives us a view of what Renalto is seeing. He makes us go through the same feelings that Renalto goes through. We feel the same lust for Malèna, we feel the sense to try and help her in some way and like Renalto we to feel helpless and sad about the misery that she goes through. The music is as haunting and poignant as the movie itself. Malèna is overall a beautiful, charming and haunting movie that you will remember long after you have seen it.