Caught in it's own web

Rating: 6/10 (30 August 2007)

Spidey's back, and this time he is facing some new enemies (Venom and the Sandman), with the same friends, and some things that don't quite fit into either category (ie, the mysterious black entity from out of space), and a some who are undecided (his best friend Harry).
Like modern superhero movies, there is an understanding a hero is not made of muscles, weapons or super powers, but in the heart and mind of the character. A hero conquers because of their own personal transformation.
But what a tangled web we weave when first we try to write a decent plot line.
The first 2 spider movies had a single enemy against with spiderman battled. The heroes were more believable, they are almost possible. In SM3 the bad guys are less believable, and there more of them. Which means we don't really get to know them, understand, or see them as human beings, who villainy is partly created by an imbalance.
Here we see so many different plot elements, many lifted from the older spider man movies, that it gets a little bit boring after a while.
Some interesting aspects are in this movie, is the black suited alien symbiont spiderman is like the batman of batman returns. Cool, Strong, powerful, angry and looking for revenge and ultimately negative.
The Sandman is a person in the wrong situation, a person you never wanted to become what he is. He can only be defeated by words and reason.
There is more here, but maybe too much more.
Ultimately the movie missing it's mark when it comes to humour, fails to develop characters enough, is unbelievable in too many aspects of the movie, too many reversals in characters that leave your head spinning and worse yet, the ending is unsatisfying. It is the failure of the ending that really makes the movie hurt.
Good try, entertaining enough, not a waste of 2 hours, but put it behind various other better titles.