Spiderman 3 – movie review and box office collections

The movie may have disappointed some people as it has a confused story line, but I found the movie entertaining all through its two and a half hours. Though a little long, it was not in the least slow or boring. The action scenes are awesome, specially the one in which Spiderman saves a girl falling from a building because of a massive crane gone mad. And the special effects – very classy.

I saw the movie a few days ago, and could see it again. Good clean fun. Some of Spidey’s fans are disappointed that Tobey Maguire plays a soft sensitive guy (even when he is Spidey, not Peter Parker) and that Kirsten Dunst is not pretty enough, but I didn’t mind that. In fact, there was something quite appealing about them, their ordinary next door look. Its a nice change not to have superlooking people playing superheroes everytime as in real life super looking people are not necessarily super heroes. This may deviate from original character of Spiderman in the comic books, but I am not too familiar with Spidey comics. Anyway, the main thing is that both acted superbly.

The movie moves fast, from one dramatic incident to another. An asteroid dropping in the middle of a field, the birth of the Sandman, the alien transforming itself into a black slimy thing which sticks on to Spiderman, Spidey’s encounter with his old friend and enemy Harry as a result of which Harry loses his memory and becomes Spidey’s pal again…for a while. All this plays in the foreground while in the background is the continuing romance of Peter Parker (Spidey) and his girl, Mary Jane. Quite sweet really.

True, the story is rather long and convoluted, even for a superhero movie, and the suspension from disbelief doesn’t weave its magic throughout. I guess Raimi, the director, wanted to give the viewers something more, something more fantastic than the last time, and I think he succeeded. It would have been nice if Raimi had come up with one original, intriguing and blockbuster villain, but well, he couldn’t, so where he lost out in quality, he made up in quantity…three different villains!

Melodramatic the film may be, but its a big big hit here in India. It was expected to do good business and as many as 588 prints have been released, a first for a Hollywood movie in India. About half of them (260) are in Hindi. The rest are in English (162), Telugu (81), Tamil (78), and Bhojpuri (6).

Its the first time ever that Bhojpuri prints have been released, a language which is often thought of as a poor cousin of Hindi. The Bhojpuri version has been dubbed so well (most Hindi versions of Hollywood movies are dubbed badly according to me) that (NDTV report), theatre owners who have taken on the Hindi prints don’t want the Bhojpuri version in their city at all! Apparently, the Bhojpuri version has been translated brilliantly, by adding local flavour to the dialogues and the voiceover is that of the famous Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishen. I heard him speak…and the man’s talent and craft comes through in his voice. I compared him to the Hindi version, and as usual found that the voices were mechanical and flat. No wonder the Bhojpuri version is making mincemeat of the Hindi version!

Spidey 3 is doing such good business that in just three days it has made almost Rs 20 crore and these earnings are expected to double by the time the week is over, by today. Spidey 3 is expected to beat some Bollywood blockbusters of recent times, like Krrish.

Only action movies from Hollywood can break the language and cultural barriers here. The only other Hollywood film in that Spidey 3 can be compared with is Bond’s Casino Royale, which released with 425 prints. And Casino Royale made about Rs 14.94 crore, about 30 percent less than Spiderman 3. Spiderman 3 is doing great worldwide too – the film has made over $150 million in its first weekend, breaking records.