Posted on 05/02/2007 9:44:55 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Spider-Man 3" begins with Spider-Man, a.k.a. Peter Parker, surveying the crime-free paradise he has created in the big city. Not only do criminals fear him, but the public finally sees him as the hero he wants to be. To top it all off, Peter is about to propose to the girl of his dreams, Mary Jane Watson, aka M.J.
There's trouble in paradise, however. Peter is getting a big head from all the public adulation, and he is not able to properly comfort M.J. when she gets a bad review after her opening night on Broadway. Meanwhile, a new, cocky photographer, Eddie Brock, challenges Peter for a full-time job with the Daily Bugle. The cost of getting the job is to give crusty editor J. Jonah Jameson a negative photo of Spider-Man doing something bad!
Then, when Peter's relationship with M.J. starts to turn more and more sour, a new villain shows up, an escaped criminal named Flint Marko who gets caught in a particle physics experiment gone wrong to become the Sandman. The Sandman is a really cool-looking character who can change his shape into a battering ram or shifting sand particles, or float away as a sand storm.
As if Peter Parker and Spider-Man didn't have enough problems, Peter's old friend Harry takes up the Green Goblin mantle to get revenge for the death of his father, the first Green Goblin, who was killed during a fight with Spider-Man. And a meteor from outer space unleashes an intelligent alien monster of malevolent, black sticky goo that attaches itself to one of Peter's Spider-Man outfits. When Peter learns that the Sandman, Flint Marko, is really the one who killed Peter's beloved Uncle Ben in the first movie, the new black suit unleashes all of Peter's anger and hate. Thus, the greatest villain of all turns out to be Peter's, and our, own dark, sinful hearts.
The story builds from here into a thrilling finale where Peter learns the true meaning of love and the power of forgiveness. In the end, he finds a way to make things right again, but with a newfound level of maturity.
It's hard to juggle more than one major villain in a story, and this may be where "Spider-Man 3" suffers most. It gives the movie one or two too many sub-plots to handle. That said, of all the action movies with more than one major villain (see "Batman 2" and "3," for example), "Spider-Man 3" does the best, because it knows where it's headed and what it wants to say.
Thus, the final third of "Spider-Man 3" contains overt Christian references to Jesus Christ on the Cross, a Christian church and answered prayers. These combine to reinforce the movie's Christian themes of love, sacrifice, forgiveness, hope, compassion and faith. Consequently, despite a couple scary villains that are a little too much for younger children, "Spider-Man 3" has a very strong Christian worldview with very strong moral, biblical values. If Christians and families see only one action movie this year, "Spider-Man 3" is the one action movie they and other moviegoers may not want to miss.
Best of all, not only does "Spider-Man 3" extol Christian values like sacrifice, forgiveness and love in a setting that resonates with overt Christian metaphors and symbols, it also is a cinematic embodiment of Jesus Christ's statement in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." This is a lesson that both Peter and M.J. learn in "Spider-Man 3." It is also what Jesus does for us on the Cross, so that His death may wash us free of sin and bring us closer to Him and His precious love and joy in the Kingdom of God and Heaven.
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MOVIEGUIDE® is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out.
Ted Baehr and Tom Snyder are founder and editor, respectively, of "MOVIEGUIDE®: The Family Guide to Movies & Entertainment."
As much as I love Hal Jordan, a world without Jon Stewart (and especially the Cartton Network animated Justice League) just wouldn’t be as cool.
Mary Jane Watson-Parker disagrees.
The guys at Adult Swim on Cartoon Network (not exactly a bunch of conservative prudes!) were so ticked off about it that they ran messages between shows telling MMarvel to get bent. IIRC, one of the phrases used was "You don't kill Captain America to make some @#$% political point."
No evil shall escape their sight!
I like Adult Swim. But some of their shows bite. This brings them up a lot of notches in my estimation.
They gave some really good eulogies too.
Duely noted. I thought the guys who created the new GL has gone PC.
I forgot there’s a ton of GLs, not just one.
I agree (see my profile) since they avoided the stupid stuff the first Batman 2-4 movies got bogged down in.
But the dialogue was, as some times, lame and not well written. Too many repeated words and phrases like they didn’t think the audience would “get it” (the Mooors, the water main is “going to blow”, “backup”, the economic depression).
I hope they just don’t jump the gun in the next couple by introducing a bigger-better Batman too early as well as the criminals like Joker. Joker should wait. The second movie should still be more about Wayne developing the Batman.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/884925/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/884925/posts
Take a look at what those hippie maggots did to the Cap prior to cowardly killing him in cold blood.
And this whole Civil War thing is a crack against the Bush Admin. “WMDs”? How freaking convenient.
The original creators of Capt. America, Spiderman, and all those heroes would never stand for their cartoons being used to attack a great leader trying to lead his nation in a diificult and dangerous time all in a naked attempt to brainwash the average patron into Communist drones and allowing the DNAZI to seize power.
What, all those wars Clinton got into was too little?
We killed more war criminals, terrorists, and despots in Iraq than Clinton did in his entire tenure. Yet because the President doesn’t have a (D) or says “Ah feeeeeeell Yore payne!” and molest interns everyone hates him.
It’s disgusting.
Too bad we don’t have much Bruceneggerlonenorris type movies anymore. We need a resurgence in patriotic gungho butt-whomp movie. Of course, theat would be jingoistic and hegemonistic of us, but who cares. :)
Thank you, I have been corrected.
I mistakenly thought it was PC run amok.
Good to see at least they kept one hero team intact.
Sorry it had to be done ;-D
Now I could be wrong in all of this because I only saw the trailer. In fact, I hope I am. I’ll have to wait and see the movie.
(chuckle)
Its all just popcorn for the mind. An escape from the daily grind.
Wel, since we’re talking comic book geek references, I’d like to see an X-Men movie from the early 80’s Shi’Ar storylines. And more Nightcrawler!
Plus, it’s always good to see scumbags get killed in new and exciting ways. :)
“Plus, its always good to see scumbags get killed in new and exciting ways. :)”
(chuckle)
Yep.
Uh, yeah, it's a comic book character. However, the character of Peter Parker was a lot deeper than you apparently cared to think about.
Its popcorn for the mind, thats all.
So you are the superficial type. Thanks for clarifying. If that's all you get out of movies, so be it. To each his/her own.
I like the Shi’Ar but I don’t see any of the comic book movie franchises making the jump to space opera. More Nightcrawler would be great, always one of my favorite characters.
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