The movie doesn't even open for another six months, and already I'm Officially Totally Psyched for Spider-Man 3, now that I've seen the brand-new trailer that just premiered on iFilm. This is two minutes and 32 seconds of pure geek bliss, not because of the action or the cool FX or anything like that -- though of course there's plenty of that packed in here -- but because it's clear that the story of Peter Parker and his inner and outer journey as Spider-Man is going to advance. This isn't a sequel that's gonna tread water or give us more of what we've already seen (hello, X-Men: The Last Stand) -- this is gonna take us to all new places.

They're gonna be scary places. Happiness for Peter peeks out at us as the trailer opens -- MJ knows who he really is! and he's gonna ask her to marry him! -- but almost instantly things take a grim turn. Peter finds the man who murdered his uncle back in the first movie, and the killer, naturally, has somehow acquired strange superpowers: he's some kind of sand dude (I know he's a character from the comic, but look, I've never been that big a comic-book geek, okay?), and Peter is tormented by a desire for revenge. And Harry Osborn is now out to avenge his father's death, and he holds Peter responsible for that. The fact that two fantastic actors, Tobey Maguire and James Franco, are in these roles has always been an indication of the maturity of this incarnation of the Spider-man story, and it looks like this time around they will both get to stretch and show their chops even more than previously. Seeing Maguire and Franco square off is, I suspect and hope, going to be one of the high points of Spider-man 3.

And seeing Maguire confront Peter's demons is gonna be spectacular. "The greatest battle lies within," the trailer tells us, and we believe that: we see Peter attacked by a creepy black substance that crawls over his body, infecting him with ... what? Evil? Or does it just take away his self-control, which has always been an iffy thing with Peter anyway? "The power," Peter's voice echoes hauntingly from the trailer, "It feels good, to lose yourself to it."

Is Peter gonna dark-side on us? Argh! I can't wait for May!

Watch the trailer at iFilm.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MaryAnn Johanson
author of The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride
minder of FlickFilosopher.com

MaryAnn contributes her geeky, Movie and TV insight to Film.com twice a day.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us