Went to the midnight showing of Spiderman 3. We had dinner at TGI Friday’s then made our way over to the theater where we found out our midnight showing had already allowed entrance and seating. So we went in, 1.5 hours early to save a group of seats, crazy. Here are my thoughts on the movie.
This one was filled with villains and I must say it was cool seeing Venom brought to life. They did a great job with his sarcastic dialog and it was cool seeing his animated mouth (and yes you do get to see the fangs). Topher Grace does a fine job as Venom and his sarcasm worked well though I didn’t prefer his voice as the venom character. The transitions from Venom back to Brock were cool where they reveal his face a bit. Emo Peter Parker was absolutely hilarious! Thomas Haden Church played the Sandman/Flint well, though I’m sure any actor could’ve played that character there really wasn’t much to communicate it was more about his look. The story was so so and the pace was strange with events either advancing too quick or too slowly or just repetitive from earlier films.
The effects were decent though some of the stuff looked rushed and too CGI/cartoony looking. The picture quality was good and the screen was clean so that’s a huge plus. The sound is hard to judge in this one. The first 15 – 20 minutes of the movie we had no surround and it took me 3 attempts to inform the crew about this to finally get the manager in there who stood at the back wall and said it ‘sounds fine to me’. I explained to him that it sounded like the Front Left, Right and Center were only on as the surrounds are dead and the explosions are very weak. He walked the theater and then 5 minutes later magically we had surrounds and a bit more boom in the room. Sound quality has been my biggest gripe with the Edwards 26 in the Towne Center. The last 3 films I’ve seen there have had problems and informing the manager did little to help each time.
Overall I had a fun evening with a fun group of folks and the movie was entertaining. Oh And there were two artards dressed like spiderman and venom! I’m looking forward to the next big film to be released, bring on the summer movies!