Very good but come on Mr. Raimi you can do better!

Rating: 7/10 (5 May 2007)

It is very painful to admit that the eagerly awaited Spiderman 3 is only satisfactory and not great as we expected.
The three villain scheme works against the film and provides us with two shallow villains. Sandman is tied to the murder of Peter's uncle (Ben) in an attempt to give him a bit more of a background. Venom on the other hand is totally unnecessary and barely gets enough screen time.
What mostly disappointed me is that a director as talented as Sam Raimi chose to use such clichés. First and best being MJ as the person who is once again in danger near the end of the film. That woman just can't keep out of trouble. This is now the third time she is captured and used as bait. The typical girl-in-trouble-man-to-the-rescue recipe has been done a billion times and does not add any originality to this flawed movie. MJ's presence seems out of place. Apparently sandman and venom managed to miraculously guess what girl Parker is interested in and where she lives! Why not have them take hostages and challenge Spiderman to come and save them? MJ could then see the whole thing on TV and rush to the scene. Just because Kirsten Dunst is your leading lady Mr. Raimi that doesn't mean she is the one who's life has to be threatened every time.
Another cliché we are all familiar with is the classic death scene where one friend "gets it" for the other friend and then says something while laying down which usually re-establishes their friendship and is then allowed to die in peace. I'd love to know how can people prolong death till they have said their take care of this, I love you or any phrases film characters have said before they died. Fine obviously Peter and Harry had to reconcile but this cliché could have been avoided. They could exchange their best friend lines during the battle in a brief moment not in the far too familiar way.
Finally I've heard that this installment might be the last (even though there are rumors of a possible 4th film), if this is true then this movie is even more flawed. Neither Peter nor MJ come even within a mile of a character peak. They were together at the end of the second film and they are together again when this one ends. They could have introduced a year or a month gap after which Peter proposes to MJ hence embarking on the next chapter of his life which is marriage. This could have been a good closure point but instead we get to see them back where they started.
Just like X Men 3, this movie is perfectly passable in terms of satisfying action sequences and excitement but this is simply not good enough considering how good the first two installments are.
7/10 pretty good but a worthy sequel or a proper closing chapter Spiderman 3 is, I'm sorry to say, not.