Watch if you feel like going to the cinema, and don't feel like watching 300 again.

Rating: 5/10 (4 May 2007)

The screenplay is an amalgam of Spiderman 3 and 4, and since the director couldn't separate the movies in a meaningful way, that fact is obvious. In two hours twenty, the movie has about an hour and a half of "boredom", which in and of itself isn't boring, as it advances the plot(albeit slowly) but is left uninterrupted by action, and that's why it hurts. The beginning is promising, but it is soon diluted, and some of the details in scenes or even plots repeat up to three times.
So, in this movie, we have Spiderman, Symbiote Spiderman, New Goblin(think hybrid of the Green Goblin from the first movie with Hobgoblin from the comics), Sandman, and last but not least, Venom. They fight. The fight scenes themselves are awesome, with he first and the last being quite lengthy and gratuitous, but they are rare and are lacking in a good musical background. The Venom character is, in my opinion, misused, and very different from the comic. But I did like Topher Grace as Venom, which was a very unexpected casting, and he manages to pull off a great Eddie/Venom. Raimi tickles and hints at many plots and subplots, but he doesn't finish them as he should, but just cuts where he isn't supposed to, and drowns it.
In this movie, it becomes obvious that Sam Raimi is shaping his own Spiderman world, which is a little bit different than the Marvel universe. In S2, and even in S1, it was apparent, but was skillfully done, without harming the movie or the franchise. I don't agree with some of the character or plot decisions that were made in the movie, but whatever, I guess those differences are here to keep even the comic fans surprised and entertained, or something like that. Either that, or Raimi had no clear vision, and got lost in joining four and a half hours of scripts into two and twenty.
The conclusion... I find it difficult to conclude something, it's difficult to grade the most expensive US movie to date with just one number. The movie isn't bad, just somewhat mild, diluted. The effects, photography, characters, fight scenes, they are all impressive, but not in the foreground. The romance parts, if you will, are also quite well done, but just doesn't fit, confuses the audience and kills the epic feel and impression. This goes to show you that sometimes, something is actually less than the sum of it's parts. All these things separate are great, but together, they endanger the whole. I clicked on 6 on IMDb, and I do believe that it's a fair grade for this movie.
Watch if you feel like going to the cinema, and don't feel like watching 300 again.