Spideylooks into the abyss

We all know Tobey Maguire spends a lot of time in the Spider-Man movies on his best behavior. But for one comical stretch in Spider-Man 3, Maguire wilds out. The explanation is a long one. But basically, an inky substance from outer space follows Peter Parker home, invades his Spider-Man uniform, and introduces him to the ample thrills of being bad — as bad as somebody who suddenly looks like he fell in with Fall Out Boy can be.

Peter wears this new black suit beneath his street clothes like an undershirt. Soon his jeans get a little tighter, his patience a little thinner, and his hair long enough to flip in hilariously cocky irritation. He struts down the streets of Manhattan in a dual state of geeky entitlement and Travoltan bliss while some lite disco-funk plays around him — he's got night fever. The ladies who stop to check him out aren't turned on. But he's impressed himself. It's as if, overnight, Peter has gone from lowly bio-chemistry student to biotech jerk. Don't worry. It's a phase.

Under the playful yet perceptive direction of Sam Raimi, Spider-Man has always been about its characters' psychological and emotional tribulations. But this sequence feels fresh because it's a real release. After six years, the franchise may be familiar, and lucrative, yet it hasn't curdled into a burdensome series of ones, zeroes, and dollar signs.

This time, the villains — including Thomas Haden Church as Sandman — aren't villainous so much as misunderstood pains in the neck. Dark forces spring from the central characters' self-doubt, and life-size insecurities from human personality crises.

In the opening minutes, Peter and his girlfriend, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), are ecstatically in love when we catch up with them. By the end of the previous movie, he had come out to her as Spider-Man, and now her stage career has taken off.

After the opening night of her new musical, they lie in a deluxe web and stargaze in a park. The sight of Maguire and Dunst, who's as radiant and vulnerable as ever, suspended like that, making out, is a wonderful image: simultaneously innocent, weird, and erotic. Then in the background a glowing meteor blazes softly to earth, and that black blob oozes out. Peter and Mary Jane are gleefully oblivious, driving off on his motorbike, as the goop affixes itself to the fender.

This could well be the opening scene from a 1950s B horror flick, and points to a gleeful hook of the Spider-Man series: The coolest thing about these movies is how uncool they are. Raimi gives us Eisenhower-era squareness that blooms in a technologically state-of-the-art New York. Spider-Man exists out of time, so the walk, say, from Natalie Wood to Kirsten Dunst is very short.

In any case, Peter and MJ, as he calls Mary Jane, don't have equilibrium for long. She wants a little humility, but he loves that New York loves Spider-Man. Right before he can ask her to marry him, she walks out in frustration. On the bright side, she finally seems to have a found a flattering hair color.

Meanwhile, Peter and Harry (James Franco), who, when we meet him, is still seething at Peter/Spider-Man for killing his father, the Green Goblin, achieve an accidental rapprochement. A show-stopping fight between them in the first 20 minutes leaves Harry with a memory-erasing concussion that temporarily reboots their friendship. When Harry gets home from the hospital, he and Peter share some boyish horseplay around his penthouse. It's a gentle, affectionate contrast to their near-murderous brawl a few days before.