Unbalanced, cluttered and unfocused.

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2018)

Following the financial and critical success of Spiderman 2, director Sam Raimi sought to use the third movie to bring an end to Harry's Green Goblin arc that the first two films had set up as well as using Sandman and Vulture as the main villains for the movie but producer Avi Arad had other ideas. He began pressuring Sam to include Venom in the movie in order to set up for his own spin-off but Raimi was reluctant to do it due to him not being a fan of the character but Avi kept insisting until Raimi caved. In addition to that, Gwen Stacy was also shoehorned into the movie at the request of the studio and Harry's story arc was expanded to make him a supervillain. What started out as a more personal story that dealt with issues of forgiveness had quickly turned into a bloated and overcrowded story where Spider-Man was battling 5 separate villains as well as dealing with a mostly one-sided love triangle which resulted in a story that was compromised by having too many hands in the pot.
Now, I never saw Spiderman 3 in theaters when it came out in 07' as I didn't watch many comic book movies at that time and given the backlash it received upon its release from the fans, I decided to stay well away from it, but early last year, I finally decided to watch it in preparation for Spiderman Homecoming and upon finishing the movie, I didn't think that it was as horrible as some of the fans were making it out to be as there are certain things I enjoyed like the action scenes and most of the acting, but the story, writing, characters, and tone left a lot to be desired in my eyes.
The film starts off three years after the previous film where Peter Parker is finally about to propose to his girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson. After attending her debut in a Broadway show, Peter and Mary-Jane go to a park and while stargazing, a meteor falls close by and a strange black liquid craws out and attaches it to Peter's moped. Meanwhile, convicted criminal Flint Marko escapes from jail and hides in his family's house only to be pursued by police into a testing site. On his way back to his apartment, Peter is attacked by a masked figure who reveals himself to be Harry but before he can kill Peter, Osborne is injured and develops amnesia as a result, causing him forgot that Peter is Spiderman. After learning that Marko was actually Uncle Ben's killer, the black symbiote bonds with Peter changing his outfit as well as his attitude and behavior. Now, with this new entity processing him, Peter begins to alienate his girlfriend as well as having to battle several new enemies and dealing with his own worst enemy: himself.
Now given my love and admiration for Sam Raimi and what he did on the first 2 Spiderman movies, it's truly mind-boggling how many incompetent and moronic decisions he and the crew made when making the film or how there are so many little inconsistencies that could have been fixed before the movie was finished. Now, I'm well aware that not everything in the final film will be perfect nor am I looking for problems in the narrative but I do expect things to make sense and not leave the viewer confused or scratching their heads: why is Mary Jane being given 3rd billing in a Broadway show and why does she have the opening song? The symbiote leaps onto the back of the moped as Peter and Mary Jane leave and neither one of them bother to even look on the back of the damn bike? When Parker arrives at the apartment after dropping MJ off, where has the symbiote gone, did it turn invisible? After Parker leaves his aunt's apartment and is attacked by the New Goblin, where does the moped go? Does it hit something and burst into flames and where in the hell does the symbiote go, shouldn't it still be attached to the back of the bike? As Harry pursues Peter through a narrow alley, Peter shoots a piece of webbing between two buildings, how come when Harry does see the webbing why doesn't he just duck under it or cut it? How could anybody still be alive after taking the kind of fall that Harry just had and why is Peter still hanging around after Harry has been injured? Why isn't he running away in the other direction? When Marko climbs a fence to escape the police and ends up in a testing facility, there is clearly a sign that says keep out, why did he not stop to even read what the sign said? Why do the scientists inside the testing facility not even bother checking to see if that change in the silicon mass is really a bird? Why does Peter have a change of clothes when he arrives at the hospital, how did he get home to change and where's the moped? Why is Peter's apartment door still not fixed? When Mary Jane leaves Peter's apartment, the symbiote is seen climbing down a lampstand. How did it come to be there? Did it arrive with Mary Jane? Why does Spiderman leave after saving Gwen, he still has a crane to stop. How did Sandman learn how to fly? Why did Peter feel the need to kiss Gwen right in front of Mary Jane? The number of inconsistencies and incompetent decisions in this movie are nothing short of idiotic and it just ends up doing more damage to the movie.
Not only does the movie suffer because of massive inconsistencies and plot holes, but unlike the first 2 movies where a straightforward tone of being fun at times but still maintaining a sense of seriousness worked so well, Spiderman 3 has a serious tone issue as it can't decide what it wants to be. Throughout the course of the movie, there'll be moments of fun then a serious scene will pop up causing the movie to grind to a halt resulting in an extremely jarring experience that just leaves the viewer confused and disappointed by the movie's end. Given the fact that Sam and his brother Ivan had a hand in writing the screenplay, it's no shock that these two shouldn't be writing any script as the dialog is cheesy in a lot of areas and down-right cringe-inducing at times, making the movie come across more like a soap opera rather than a comic book movie which shows just how in over their heads the Rami brothers were when helping Alan Sargent write the screenplay.
Much like X-Men 3 and The Amazing Spiderman 2, Spiderman 3 also feels the need to throw so much into its 2 hour running time in order to try and please the fans which results in both the story at hand and the characters suffering due to the overstuffed narrative and the fact that there isn't enough time for each character to really shire unlike a movie like The Avengers nor does it allow any character growth resulting in the viewer having no investment in any of them as well as the movie having too many subplots that go nowhere.
Sandman aka Flint Marko is a convicted felon whose motivations revolve around having a sick child and that's what compels him to steal which is supposed to make the viewer feel sympatric about his plight but it mostly just comes across as weak and melodramatic and fails to make us care about Marko or his daughter. Just because you give a character in a movie a child or a family doesn't make them sympathetic unless you take the time to make us fee for them, this kind of emotional heartstring pulling didn't work for The Patriot and it sure as hell doesn't work for Spiderman 3. Also infuriating is the recon of Sandman being Uncle Ben's killer. Now I do understand why Sam Raimi did this as he wanted to have the film's story be about Peter learning to forgive Sandman for murdering his uncle which is fair enough, but the way it's handled when Marko explains to Peter that he accidentally killed Uncle Ben comes across as forced and unearned as well as incredibly sappy rather than heartfelt and while the Martha scene from Batman V Superman is far more stupid, the scene in Spiderman 3 just feels like the ending of a cheesy soup opera rather than a genuine emotional finale. Much like Sandman getting a piss-poor character, Mary Jane Watson also gets a character assassination by going from a determined and career-driven woman in the first two movies to being a self-righteous and sobbing attention hog here. Since when was she ever interested in becoming a singer? In the first two movies, it was clear that MJ wanted to be an actress, but what was the reason for making her a singer? It makes no sense in the slightest. Not to mention the writers completely miss the point of who Mary Jane is as a character as she's a fun-loving, cheeky, high-spirited young woman who helps Peter to burst out of his nerdy shell and have fun while in the movie, the writing makes her come across as a whiny pre-madonna who bursts into tears just because of one bad review and doesn't even tell Peter that she was let go from the play for not being able to sing worth a damn and when Peter tries to give her some words of encouragement, she rebukes him and continues to whine about her career ending throughout the rest of the movie, hardly a character worth caring about. Thanks for that, Sam, Ivan and Alan. As for Harry Osborne, his arc is just as stupid and nonsensical as the other characters arcs in the movie. Besides becoming the next Green Goblin, Harry still wants revenge on Peter for supposedly killing his father in the first movie which could have been averted if Peter could have just explained what actually happened to Norman briefly back in the last movie rather than wait until now but what's even more stupid is how during the first battle between the two of them, Harry suffers a concussion resulting in him getting amnesia and yet doesn't remember the events prior to his accident, another example of how lazy the writing is here. After that, Harry is pretty much useless until he regains his memory in the most paretic way imaginable. Even more nonsensical is towards the end of the movie when Harry's butler tells him what really happened to his father causing Harry to go and help Peter even though Peter tried to kill him earlier in the movie and apparently Harry is perfectly forgiving of Parker and shows no sign of anger towards him.