Spidey’s in town

The shrill sound of my phone ringing cuts into a fabulous dream. I'm not one of those people who bound out of bed in the mornings with a glad smile and a joyous hallelujah, and so all I can manage to spit out is a barely civil "'ello." All is forgiven when I discover that Sanjay has good news for me – it turns out that he has an extra ticket for Spiderman 3, and if I just toddle down to MC in an hour, it's mine for the taking. Not surprisingly, I'm soon out of bed and fumbling for my slippers.

One hour later: I gape open-mouthed, wide-eyed amazement at the queue that goes on for two floors, winding down the stairway, past numerous closed shops. They've obviously been here awhile, and it's only 9:45 on a Sunday morning! 9:45am! What do these people do on a Saturday night?! Curl up early under the covers and dream of Jeanie? It's so bad, that when I do eventually find Sanjay, he's in another queue. Only this one is for those who've booked their tickets well in advance. This doesn't make any sense to me… but perhaps it's all the sleep deprivation.

When we do finally get our tickets half an hour later, we have to push our way through the ravening hordes to actually get into the theatre. Laden down with popcorn and drinks, we proceed along the aisles, stooping as we try to come to grips with the complicated and largely non-existent seating system. The only man who seems to know anything about anything is a solitary security guard cum usher. When respectfully presented with a ticket and asked for directions, he obligingly flings his arm in the general direction of several rows and hands your right ticket back to you.

Eventually, just as the lights dim, we collapse into our allotted seats. Almost at once, an annoyingly shrill female voice from the row behind us begins a running commentary on the film. "Oh, no, we have a talker," groans Suli beside me. In fact, we soon discover that there's more than one of her – there's a whole family, complete with an inquisitive little boy. It is rapidly apparent that this lady simple delights in stating the obvious. The two and a half hour film is littered with such insightful gems as, "Ah, MJ's angry because he's acting odd!" "Odd, what's odd mama?"…and so on and so fourth ad nauseum. But it was only after suffering through this for eons that my absolute favourite line came up. The loud ringing of someone else's cell phone had an outraged Mrs. Talkative declaring… "My! People these days have no manners at all!" You don't say?

Despite all these little annoyances, I did enjoy myself, not least because all the animation was very, very impressive. Peter (Tobey Mcguire) has plenty on his plate, not only does he have to detach from a weird alien parasite that's determined to corrupt him, he's also got no less than three villainous villains on his hands. Unsurprisingly, this, the latest movie in the Spiderman series, has more action sequences, more romance, more humour, more everything.

Spidey in action is way cool (as usual) but the Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church) is even better. Made up of countless shifting grains of sand, the Sandman is practically indestructible and has a fist to watch out for. This guy has an intriguing connection to Spidey's past, and is something of a tortured soul, though obviously not one of those born to be bad types. Venom, a.k.a Eddie Brock, played by Topher Grace is a fantastic villain. With a set of teeth that a shark would kill for, Venom is obviously having the time of his life. "I like being bad," he crows, "It makes me happy." I only wish we'd seen a little more of him.

The third of Peter's rivals is Harry Osborne – once best friend, but now arch enemy Goblin Jr. Incidentally, Harry is also quite yummy, even when he's miserable. It's worth noting that Spiderman 3 is a sensitive guy's movie, with all the lead characters spending quite as much time weeping/getting gooey as they do beating the pulp out of each other.

Spidey himself does his share of weeping. In his black suit, he's one of the iconic images of the film – you know, 'how long can one man fight the darkness?' yada, yada. But I must confess that I was disappointed by the fact that Spidey's "dark" side is more like dimly lit rather than pitch black. One thing good ol' Pete is not is a Baaad Boy.

At his worst, Pete is a slimy git – his oily hair hangs over one eye, he struts along the street eying women, and convincing his landlady to make him more cookies with nuts. While he does get a lot more violent, you're left with the impression that he could simply use a few anger management classes. A horrifying glimpse into the depravity and darkness lurking within the tortured soul of our superhero this is not.

In the end, Spiderman 3 is definitely worth watching (if for no other reason, than to bid a less than fond adieu to Kirsten Dunst – rumour has it that she won't be reprising her role as MJ in the next flick). Many fans have labelled this the best of the three movies, and I can understand why – it's a glimpse into the heart of an ordinary guy, who is struggling to do the right thing in extraordinary circumstances. Staying true is obviously tough when you've been bitten by a mutant spider, become a superhero and now have an alien parasite for company. There's this one moment that captures it all – the horror and the struggle: MJ is on the floor, Peter is looking down at her, frozen. "Who are you?" she asks helplessly. "I don't know," is all he can say.