It didn't live up to my expectations.

Rating: 1/10 (22 May 2007)

After seeing the immensely large number of trailers for this film, I was pretty excited to see it. On May 4, I sat in the theater waiting for the movie of the year. About two and a half hours later, I was still waiting.
Spider-Man 3 opens slowly. Mary-Jane is in her first Broadway performance, and the love-struck Peter is in the front row. Later, he takes her out for a romantic evening watching a meteor shower...in a giant spiderweb. While here, an alien symbiote from a meteorite attaches to Peter's bike and hitches a ride back to his apartment.
Nothing exciting yet.
Peter decides to propose to MJ and talks to Aunt May about it. On the way home, Harry, who shall be known as "New Goblin", comes out of nowhere and attacks Peter while wearing the most "Power-Ranger"-esque mask in the world. What follows is a relatively exciting action sequence which ends in Harry losing his memory. So Harry's nice to Peter (for now), and Pete's doing pretty well. Then everything falls apart.
His relationship with MJ is estranged, he finds out that the Sandman, who is somewhat difficult to beat, killed his uncle, and a black alien symbiote takes over his suit and makes him evil/emo.
What's wrong with this movie? First of all, the script was severely lacking. In the second one, we were treated to a perfect combination of action and emotional depth. In this third one, there is so much else going on, that there's not enough time for character development and story development. Second, the John Travolta sequence felt really...awkward. For a good 10 minutes, emo-Peter is dressed in black clothing, hitting on passing women, and imitating John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever. I understand the point of the sequence, but I think it could have been better. Third, Venom!! Venom is a major character, and a fascinating one to say the least. I think he deserved more than five minutes of screen time. Actually, I think he deserved his own movie! Some other problems I have are: 1) The Score - It didn't fit the scenes all that well (i.e. scene where Pete beats the crap out of Harry and blows half his face off); 2) Cheesiness - Yes, I know the comics were cheesy, but the first two movies weren't! Why should the third one be? Cheesiness includes Spidey posing in front of the US flag, and dialogue like Eddie Brock's: "What the hell?!" and emo-Peter's: "I'd love to shoot you sometime."; 3) Thomas Haden Church - He is a great actor, but his acting skills weren't used as much as they could have been.
It has some good things though, like good visual effects and good acting. The major problem is simply attempting to cram tons and tons of conflicts into one movie.
The movie is an OK movie overall, but a bad Spider-Man movie.
Ajax the Great...out!