Trial and Error

I never thought I would say this. But the seven-minute preview for “Spiderman 3” on NBC.com is phenomenally dull.

Now, let me add that I didn’t just watch the preview for this blog. I watched it because I am a 100 percent, certified, unashamed “Spiderman” (the movie) junkie. I absolutely adore “Spiderman” and “Spiderman 2.” In fact, I am planning on taking May 4 off to see “Spiderman 3” the very day it’s released. (I suppose this blog entry will serve to let my editors at TVWeek know of my pending absence that day). And despite the snooze-inducing 7-minute clip from the final installment in the webbed trilogy, I’ll still see the movie.

But I’m slightly less excited than I was before watching the preview. Here’s why:

• Harry as the Green Goblin deux is boring.
• Aunt May’s speech about how Peter’s uncle proposed to her is beyond boring.
• Peter’s attempt to revive Harry is implausible.
• And, this pains me the most to say because I love the Peter and MJ push-pull, but I almost gagged when Peter said “I love you so much” to MJ in the web he’d spun.

Let’s move onto the mechanics now. As part of a marketing partnership with “Heroes,” NBC.com posted that seven-minute preview in high-definition on its site for 24 hours, starting in the evening of March 5.

I grant NBC major points for strong promotion—there’s an image that takes up nearly half the browser window shouting about the clip. I clicked on that image to download the clip. The download process is slightly annoying because you don’t see a download scroll bar telling you how much you have downloaded so far. So, despite the little window telling me to be patient, I still clicked on “download” four times. I have this thing about instant gratification.

After a few minutes of me impatiently tapping my foot, the clip downloaded four times. So in the end, NBC did a fine job handling the technology behind delivering such a mammoth clip.

I just wish the film makers did a better job giving me something that would entice me to take a week off.