A slight case of too many villains spoil the broth

Rating: 7/10 (5 May 2007)

Spider-Man 3 has to be one of the most hyped movies in history - and with expectations high, I went into it expecting it to be the best of the Spider-Man films.
However, upon emerging from the cinema, while not totally disappointed, I wasn't completely satisfied either. There was something missing from this one that was missing from the other two.
The main reason behind this is that this being the most expensive and ambitious of the three, the writers thought they could shoehorn in a lot more plot into two and a bit hours than they really could.
The story takes inspiration from the alien symbiont plot of the comics, where Spider-Man's suit turns black after bonding with an alien life-form, giving him increased power, but also bringing out his aggressive side. He becomes a bit of a jerk (he doesn't do anything really dark, apart from trying to annoy MJ), decides he needs to get rid of the suit by tearing it off in a belltower, at which point it bonds with Eddie Brock, who becomes Venom.
Now this would make for enough of a movie on its own, but the Sandman is also introduced. It turns out he really killed Peter's Uncle Ben, and Spider-Man thus goes out for revenge. And talking about revenge, Harry Osborn becomes the New Goblin and tries to kill Peter.
This is the problem with the film: it tries to combine three stories that could make an entire film themselves into one. None of the villains feels as fleshed out as Doc Ock or the first Green Goblin were, and thus you don't really feel that involved with the story. The effects are spectacular, especially the final Spider-Man/Harry Osborn vs Sandman/Venom fight, but they don't make up for the fact that there are just too many things going on at one time. Drop either Venom or Sandman, and the film would have been better. You could still have room for the entire Harry/New Goblin thing, and do the remaining primary villain of the film justice.
In the end, the film is slightly disappointing, but does have some rather good moments typical of the others, such as Bruce Campbell's cheesy French stereotype waiter, or the rather daft but hilarious dance sequence in the jazz club.
Spider-Man 3 is good, but could have been a lot better had one of the two primary villains been shunted over to the next one, where they could have been fleshed out more and made more interesting.