Seriously, I feel sorry for you if you can't enjoy this movie...

Rating: 9/10 (2 May 2007)

I had a blast with S3 partially because it felt so much like reading a great comic book! Really, the notion of 15-20 years of comic collecting as such a foundation of my person finally being made into such successful high-end Hollywood tent-pole product can't help but have a euphoric affect- but, I'm one of those who goes in wanting to have fun- not one who's thinking "okay, how are they going to f-up my heroes this time?".
THC was perfect as Sandman, and the effects were fantastic. It's hard not to get anyone's hopes up, and I never expected to say this... but Venom was actually cooler than I anticipated!! His bodily surface texture and the way it looked when he "spoke" was just kick ass cool.
I want to see it again in order to fully compare it to the other Spidey films, but I guess that's a good thing- 'cause I AM looking forward to seeing it again. Some might argue that there's too much going on with 3 villains, some powerful friendship issues, and more than a couple romantic tuggings, but I absolutely had fun with it. It may have played a hair long at 2hr 20min, but I also could tell there were some things cut out- so I'm expecting a director's cut DVD with like 30 minutes added in.
Bruce Campbell's stuff was even better(and more hilarious) than his Spidey 2 cameo, which I also loved.
Emotional Beats- I want to mention something here because it could make or break the film for some people. Much like Spidey 2, right at the end there's an attempt to hammer the audience with a quadrifold of emotional downpours (be it good, bad, whatever). Some of it almost felt forced, some of it almost felt contrived... but, just as I wanted to roll my eyes in frustration it worked itself out nicely. As I thought "okay, I guess they're going to try and wrap THAT up now" my chin nearly buckled and I started fighting the urge to shed a tear (and I could hear people around me sniffling)- so by that standard I have to say it worked. MOST people could potentially be choked up several times over by the end, and for me it worked all the way down to the very last shot, which I felt was great (I actually thought "okay, a shitty movie would have done it this other way, but Raimi did it right by keeping it wonderfully subtle and unspoken".)
WARNING: SUPER SPOILERY PARAGRAPH- In regards to the emotional beat breakdown, here's the ending layout (if I remember it correctly). Even though you saw it coming a mile away, you feel tingly when Harry shows up at the last minute to help Spidey defeat Sandman and Venom. Don't know if you feel much when Harry sacrifices himself to save Spidey because you really see it coming, but no big deal. After Venom's defeated, Sandman tells Peter how the gun accidentally went off when his partner-in-crime bumped him before getting in Uncle Ben's car. It was borderline silly with Sandman's flashback insert, then the holding up of the locket with his dying daughter's picture in it, however, Peter says he forgives him, which as a character moment makes it work great (in my opinion). Then we get to Harry's cliché "dying in Peter's arms" scene, but somehow you feel something in what's said between them. Just as you're bordering on emotion (if you made it though Harry's death scene without buckling- that's where I heard some sniffles), you're shamelessly thrown head first into the funeral scene- which if done properly can sucker anyone into emotion- and Raimi pulled it off with simply a voice over narration from Peter (which I felt was perfect- not too much). THEN we cut to a scene maybe not too far in the future, with Mary Jane singing in a jazz lounge, which we knows she's not happy doing (she'd been kicked off a Broadway show earlier in the movie because of bad reviews). At this point a divide of several layers had been created between them despite Peter's having told her that he meant to propose during one of their dinners (but it got flubbed- that's the humorous Bruce Campbell scene). As the scene began I thought "it's going to be really cheesy if he walks in and shows her the ring", and gladly I was surprised: no dialogue at all... the final shot is of him walking in without saying a word. Mary Jane stops singing as soon as she sees him, and Peter simply extends his hand. She takes it, comes down from the stage, hugs him, and they slow dance to the music she'd been singing to. The camera moves around them to close in on a shot of Peter as a tiny bit of happiness shows, and the film ends. The only thing that kept me from breaking a tear, was my anger in having been manipulated so masterfully with stuff that should have been cheesy. Nice job! --END SUPER SPOILERY.
Yeah, there's some musical silliness that made me want to cringe, but a good chunk of your everyday crowd will no doubt love it (kind of how I loved the "me say day" sequence from Beetlejuice when I was younger, but now it plays pretty stupid?).
And yes, the cgi camera work is amazing, whipping and whirling in and around mid-air battles and what not is also reminiscent of reading a comic- which I'm all for.
Lastly, I wish we could have seen Spidey's black costume like it was in the comic, as opposed to it just being a black version of the red and blue costume. No big deal, but when you see the "real" black Spidey costume as Venom's costume it's awesome as hell.