Some great things, but it never really comes together

Rating: 6/10 (8 September 2007)

Undoubtedly one of the summer's most highly anticipated movies, Spider-Man 3 picks up soon after the end of Spider-Man 2 (or I assume it does anyway). The problems are inherent right from the beginning as the film tries to push too much into one film. Of the issues addressed in this film are Peter's problems with Harry and the death of Norman Osborne, his affair with Mary Jane, two villains (one of which is Uncle Ben's real killer), not to mention Peter's own demons dealing with revenge. The film tries to touch on every one of these aspects (I'm forgetting the rivalry with Eddie Brock and another potential love interest in Gwen Stacy) and ends up not developing any of them very well.
One villain would've been OK; either Sandman or Venom but not both. I think deep down the fans really wanted more Venom and the evil Spider-Man than anything else. What really watered the movie down was the acting. A summer action movie really isn't supposed to be there for the acting, it's more about the escapism and fun. But what sold Spider-Man 2 to the world were the story and the performances. We really did care about Peter Parker and Spider-Man's survival in part two. In this one, it seems that the hero succeeds too easily on all levels. He doesn't fail enough and doesn't have to push enough to show us he's worthy of our attention and sympathy. But then again, it all goes back to the summer 2007 escapist spectacle. Spider-Man 3 ends up trying to win us over with the spectacles rather than focusing on the story and the characters.
The film did have some terrific action scenes. The birth of Sandman will go down as one of the greatest pieces of CGI work ever done. There was a lot of drama in this shot, and in the end you think to yourself that it was real and it happened, but it was just CGI mixed with Christopher Young's terrific background score. But then, the drama throughout the rest of the film falls a little short. Peter and Harry's friendship seemed to take the easy way out in terms of their story and acting. Strangely enough, Toby Maguire and Kirstin Dunst don't seem to have the chemistry they had in the previous two films. The scenes between Peter and MJ, apart from being overly melodramatic, just detracted from the film's pacing. Coming in at nearly two and a half hours, the movie ends up being too short and too long because there's too much Sandman and not enough Venom on top of all the things crammed into it.
Spider-Man 2 was a film that would go down as one of the greatest; if not the greatest super hero film of all time. Spidey 2 ends up being the real ending to the story. Spider-Man 3 simply fails to deliver. Some of us are left thinking, we should've waited for the DVD.