Raimi Went for Way Too Much and It Didn't Work

Rating: Null/10 (13 May 2012)

Spider-Man 3 (2007)
** (out of 4)
The final film in the trilogy has Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) trying to get on with their lives but new villains (Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace) cause problems as does a strange black entity, which causes personalities to change. While all of this is going on you still have Harry (James Franco) wanting revenge. SPIDER-MAN 3 hit with a pretty loud thud from both fans and critics and I've read several opinions on why the film didn't work. To me, the biggest thing to blame for its failure is SPIDER-MAN 2. That film mixed the character development with the action so well and since fans and critics ate it up so much I think writer-director Sam Raimi was just under pressure to try and recapture that magic. This third film gives us much more character development, much more story, a bigger running time to deal with it and non-stop crying scenes and in the end the film just comes across as a complete mess. Trying to make an entire film about the relationship between Parker and Mary Jane was just a mistake because there's really no chemistry here and you really can't see what one would see in the other. The entire stuff dealing with Mary Jane's professional career was just boring and never worked either. The stuff dealing with Parker's personal problems really wasn't interesting either. The only good stuff, in regards to the character development, comes from the Sandman character as Thomas Haden Church easily steals the film delivering a nice performance and making his subplot work. Maguire, Dunst and Franco are all good in their parts and Grace gives a nice performance but there's just not much they can do. The film does contain some excellent special effects and especially all of the stuff dealing with the Sandman. Still, in the end, you have a weak screenplay and the movie simply isn't going to work and I think this is a case where the writer just tried to do too much and in the end it didn't work.