Like a Spider Caught in its Own Web (spoilers)

Rating: 6/10 (5 July 2007)

As a fan of both the comic and the movie series this film draws its heritage from, I had a lot of expectations for this flick. Maybe that's why I left the theater unsatisfied, my movie palette somewhat unquenched. But in a fan boy fit, I dismissed that theory. Later on, as I had time to reflect, I began to wonder, maybe it's just because the movie flat-out sucked? But that didn't seem entirely true. It was only later, like a week later, that my conflicted brain came up with the answer.
Both accusations were prevalent.
Spider Man 3, in many, but not all ways, is a grossly inferior film to its fun and exciting predecessors. Gone is the atmosphere of innocence and just-corny-enough ambiance that let you Merrily stroll through the Sam Raimi's and Stan Lee's world like a little kid again. Instead, you receive a film that, ironically, feels very much structurally like a spider web looks visually. It's has complexity, interweaving plot lines, abundant characters, and multiple character personality track-switches. The problem is, it just has to damn many of them.
The entire film just has, plain-and-simple, TO MUCH GOING ON. It truly does feel like two scripts cut-and-pasted together into one. Cleverly cut and pasted, to be sure, but cut and pasted none the less. Plot threads left dangling in the second film, like Harry Osborn finding his fathers Goblin Lair and Mary Jane finally admitting her love for Peter, are addressed, but very poorly used. Harry turns into the second goblin for what ultimately feels like the greater of five seconds, only to have his memory magically erased by a bonk to the head. True, he turns evil again later, but only to have his green ass handed to him by a black suit-clad peter and in the process, turns good yet again. Ugh.
This actually leads to another major problem with Spider Man 3. The Villains. There are three of them, Neo Goblin (I'm sorry, Goblin 2 is a stupid name and we all know it), The Sandman, and Venom. Unfortunately, all of them get as much screen time at once as almost everything else in the movie, approximately five minutes, and you never really feel connected with them like you did with the original Goblin and Doc Ock. The one who gets the worst of it is Venom, arguably the focal villain of the film and a character who is rapidly receiving a bad rap about only appearing at the end of the film for about ten minutes. I recently read a comparison to the villain of the movie "Transformers," the robot Megatron, who also has a similar predicament and was stated to have been "venomized." While Neo Goblin and Sandman both get a better deal in this movie, they too suffer from lack of attention, and in the end, just feel flat.
The amount of just sheer STUFF going on is almost mind-bending. There's Peter wanting to propose to MJ, the (poorly done) landing of the Venom symbiont on Earth, the introduction of Venoms alter ego Eddie Brock, Peter's relationship with a skitzophrenic Harry, the background of the Sandman, Peter wanting revenge on his Uncles "real" murderer who IS the Sandman, Peter turning evil and pushing MJ away after unknowingly bonding with the Venom symbiont, Peter ruining Eddie Brocks life and wanting revenge on him, Peter dating the barely used Gwen Stacy and ruining MJ's life in the process...and all of this is happening virtually at once in a two hour long movie.
Sam Raimi said he didn't want Venom in the movie, and you can definitely feel it. The whole film plays like a machine with an extra cog stuck in it, and in the end, it damages the experience.
I had a lot of hope for this film. As it stands, it could have been a lot worse, but somehow, that's not much comfort.
6/10. Likable, but in the end, forgettable.