Never developed enough to become involving

Rating: 6/10 (18 June 2012)

In spite of its inherent clumsiness and disappointing villain, the first "Spider-Man" remains a great crowd-pleaser with an excellent origin story and more life and energy to it than pretty much any comic book movie made before or since.
Now comes the third film which is as technically impressive as ever, but suffers from being simultaneously pulled in too many different directions. Even being an extra 15 minutes or so longer than its predecessor, the film still has to juggle three villains (Sandman, Harry Osborn, Venom) along with subplots about the rocky roads of new love, a "Superman 3" style 'dark personality' subplot, the ongoing Harry-Mary Jane-Peter love-hate triangle, not to mention giving time to a half dozen other characters both new and old.
Surprisingly the film does manage to wrap things up by the end, so much so that it feels like an 'unofficial end' to the series in some ways with no cliff hanging stories left to resolve. Yet how most of these are resolved is done in some rushed and often unsatisfactory ways and that's where "Spider-Man 3" falls apart. The elements are there for some great drama, but they're never developed enough to become involving, and often awkwardly mix rather than cohesively gel.