Spider-Man 3: A 9-year-old's Review

My son is an avid Spider-man fan. From the time that he saw the first Spider-man movie, he has grown to admire this superhero. Several months ago, I bought him a drawing book for beginners, and it did not dawn on me that it actually featured Spider-man, until he showed me that he was starting to learn to draw. In that drawing book, he discovered the many other characters.

My son also has the Spider-man playstation game, so he is just enamored with the web-throwing and wall-climbing skills of this character. Ask him his powers, he would enumerate them without batting an eye lash. He said Spider-man can do web swings, back flips and front flips in the air, use his web to fling his opponents, do a web dome, and kick while web-swinging. He adds that spidey has spider-sense that serves an alarm and could allow him to elude opponents behind him.

So let the first two paragraphs serve as a warning: he is a fan, so his critic of the movie might be a little one-sided.

Asked about the over-all description of Spider-man 3, my son said that he would describe it as fantastic. He found the movie so cool because of the sound effects (for me, some parts were too loud actually) that gave the thrilling parts more exciting. He said he was in awe looking at the transformation of characters, and was so intrigued on how make-up and other effects could have done that. He loved Harry Osborn's (played by James Franco) slightly burnt face, and was just floored about the effects made to create the look and size of Sandman (played by Thomas Haden Church). For him, however, Venom's voice (played by Topher Grace) sometimes did not seem to "fit" the expression of Venom's face.

He found the movie more interesting than the first two movies, because of the influence of the alien symbiote on Peter Parker, convincingly played by Tobey Maguire (Take note, he knew the word "symbiote" months before the movie was going to be shown because he was reading about the plot already). He loved how the symbiote affected Peter's behavior, and how it gave birth to the black Spider-man suit that evidently represented the dark side of both Spider-man and Peter

His favorite part of the movie was the chase scene at the beginning of the movie between the New Goblin and Spider-man. He found it breath-taking. He said he could not get enough of New Goblin's glider, which he felt looked better and was fancier than the old Goblin's (Norman Osborn played by Willem Dafoe). The last battle between the tandem of Spider-man and the reformed New Goblin versus the two villains Sandman and Venom was also another awesome part, according to him.

If asked if there were parts that he least liked, my son said that he would choose most of the sad events in the movie. This would include Harry Osborn's death, the fight between Peter and Mary Jane, the sad story in the life of Sandman and the pain that Spider-man felt every time he would be in a duel with the villains.

Harry Osborn's death saddened him because it was unfortunate that he had to go when he became allies with Spider-man, after realizing that it was not really Spider-man who killed his father, Norman Osborn. As the New Goblin, my son said that Spider-man would be helped in many ways to fight crime and other enemies.

He said Peter's changed character, as brought about by the alien symbiote, caused Mary Jane a lot of pain. However sad, he said that he saw it coming. A person with a developing bad attitude would cause harm to a blossoming relationship.

Sandman's sob story about his intention to acquire money for the sake of his sick daughter saddened him as well. He also had the impression that the Sandman was really a bad person who just wanted to steal money, and intentionally killed Uncle Ben, Peter's beloved uncle. He said that it in the Sandman's last conversation with Spider-man, it was shown that he was not really a bad person, but there were things beyond his (Sandman) control that have led to the turn of unfortunate events.

Like any superhero fan, my son claimed that it hurt to see your hero being kicked and thrown against walls and buildings. Other than the physical pain that Spider-man endured, my son admitted that it was not so good to see Peter Parker crying after Mary Jane told him that they needed to part ways. But at the end, when they got back into each other's arms, my son considered that a triumphant moment for Peter.

Out of 5 stars, he is giving it a 4 1/2 stars. I asked him what was lacking and what would merit that 1/2 star. He said that it was not still a perfect movie. According to his taste, some of the conversation scenes were yawn moments, and that it could have been more awesome if Spider-man wore the black suit longer because it actually gave his superhero more power and abilities.

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