That’s Elizabeth Banks playing Betty Brant (Peter’s first love in the comics), and yes, she has been hot in all three movies.
She also played Dr. Kim Briggs on Scrubs, she was Nathan Fillion’s love interest in the excellent horror-comedy Slither, she was the nymphomaniac in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and she got Michael Showalter and Justin Theroux to feud over her in the romantic comedy The Baxter. Gorgeous and charismatic actress, with surprisingly great comic timing (better than Cameron Diaz, I’d say).
I saw it this morning. My company treated the entire IT department to a free screening.
Free’s about what it was worth.
I liked (a) the origin of Sandman: thought it was beautifully shot and acted, and very moving; and (b) Peter’s finger-snappin’ John Travolta attitude after being Venomized, and yes, that includes the dance number: it reminded me that this is, after all, a Sam Raimi movie, and Sam Raimi is basically nuts.
I saw it today with my kids, who loved it. Me, I enjoyed the action sequences very much, the relationship stuff not so much. McGuire was painful to watch trying to be “evil.” He was, at most, a bad-tempered nerd…not even an evil nerd, just a bad-tempered, selfish one. The “evil” he did was to…upstage his ex-girlfriend and insult a guy who was trying to kill him. Wow, that’s so…NOT evil. :rolleyes:
Eddie Brock, OTOH, WAS evil…yet still a nerdy geek as well. It pissed me off that Venom still had Topher Grace’s whiney, high-pitched voice. He should have had a deep voice.
Also, I have to agree that Kirsten Dunst is not a good Mary Jane and this movie proved it more than ever.
I did very much enjoy the final fight, with Harry teaming up with Pete to fight Sandman and Venom. I also found Harry’s death scene to be pretty touching, especially given the quality of the movie around it.
I remember her now! I see from IMDb.com that she also played Jeff Bridges’s (significantly younger) sweetheart in Seabiscuit (also starring Tobey Maguire, BTW). I think I’m in love…
He wasn’t supposed to be evil. It “amplifies negative emotion” and it was established from the first scenes that his negative emotion was arrogance and selfishness. Whereas Eddie Brock’s negatives were lying, cheating, aggression, and hatred.
This is part of the problem I have with how people view the film as bad - they aren’t recognising the source material. Peter Parker is a big nerdy geek, but basically he’s a decent guy. But that’s what persistently bites him in the butt, especially in this episode. As far as I can see, there’s nothing here that isn’t a direct follow on from the first two films, and these negative reactions surprise me.
UPDATE! Upon further research, it turns out that the “Vacant Lot Laboratories” installation that gave the Sandman his powers was identified onscreen as a “Particle Research Facility!” Well, that’s entirely logical, then. Because SAND is made of PARTICLES! I feel like such a turd for questioning this earlier. Yes, the bleeding edge of modern particle research, depicted onscreen… antineutrinos; the Higgs boson; and SAND.
“Ah yes… Peter Pe’cker.”
“Um…it’s ‘Parker.’”
“Zat ees what I said! Pe’cker!”
Oh Bruce, you are a joy. I remember that one convention interview: “In the first movie, I named Spider-Man… in the second movie, I defeated Spider-Man… in this movie, I *team up * with Spider-Man.” Indeed. When is Sam going to cast you as a major villain? It’s not as though your unique brand of scenery-chewing is going to undermine the seriousness of the franchise, now that we’ve seen Tobey Maguire doing the Lambada of Vengeance. Bruce Campbell = Mysterio. It needs to happen. “I… am MYSTERIO!!! Master of e-LEW-sion!” (spooky hand gestures) Think of the physical comedy potential of the head globe alone!
Speaking of weird science and physical comedy, I had this disturbing epiphany from out of nowhere… I don’t know exactly what gave me the vibe, or why, but **Terrifel ** predicts:
Raimi is building the franchise toward the storyline from the comics where Peter Parker tries to cure himself, and winds up giving himself six arms instead. You read it here first.
Did anybody else get a laugh from the scene where Dr. Connors is looking at the symbiote cells under the microscope? I thought it was hilarious, but I’m pretty sure I was the only person in the theater who thought so.
You know another thing I missed? They didn’t bother to include a version of the “Spider-Man Theme” on the soundtrack during the closing credits, like they did during the last two films. How is it that they never got around to including the awesomely groovy cover by the Ramones, or even the quirky They Might Be Giants version from Dial-A-Song?
The writers on this film are damn lucky writers can’t be sued for malpractice. We need Peter and MJ to split up; let’s see just how convoluted a scenario we can come up with to make it happen! We have too many villains in the movie already, so let’s introduce a brand new one 3/4 of the way through! We need Harry to go from being bad to being good, so let’s pull out the amnesia plot cliche! We need him to go from bad to good again, so here comes the butler ex machina!
I would say that the editors would be equally liable for malpractice in a just world, if I were convinced that the film actually had any.
Three things that might have made the movie a little better:
–The scene in the church where Topher Grace becomes Venom should have been the last scene in the movie. It would have been the perfect setup for the inevitable fourth installment. This movie didn’t need him.
–They could have left the scene in the jazz club in The Mask where it belonged.
–They could have found a better actress to play Sofia Coppola’s part. Oh, wait, sorry, wrong inexplicably shitty third installment.
Really, though, it’s hard to imagine what they could have changed to make the movie better without making it an entirely different movie.
Good points–Thomas Haden Church, Bruce Campbell, and J.K. Simmons were all fantastic. The soundtrack album is, for a summer blockbuster, surprisingly good. That’s it.
