Runt of the litter, but not terrible.

Rating: 6/10 (25 February 2008)

I remember when I first saw a trailer that showed Venom for the first time for this movie. As a Spidey fanboy, it made me very happy. It excited me as I knew this series was picking up speed. I expected to be blown away. What a got was a decent movie that did a little too much.
To start, the characters as always were good. Tobey plays Peter well, Franco is wonderful as Harry (okay as Goblin), and J.K. Simmons is just masterful as Jameson. Kirten Dunst has caught some crap for her role. I thought a lot of her. Unfortunately, I think her character helped stain this movie. She was paranoid and jealous. Not a terrible performance in my opinion, but something to sneer at a bit. I didn't like the idea of Topher grace as Eddie Brock, and I still don't, but from my perspective he didn't do a bad job. The attitude, personal grief and vengeful feelings toward Spider-Man were well displayed.
Another thing that I believe stained the movie was Peter's aggressive side. Some scenes in the movie truly brought out Peter's dark side manifested by the alien suit, such as the scene where Spidey confronted Sandman in the sewer. Otherwise, it was pretty lame with the dance moves and look/attitude of a common jerk, rather than an evil being.
They also tried to fit too much into one film. Venom should have been left to the next movie (as it appears there will be one) rather than slipped in and dealt with the way he was. Adding the Sandman and Goblin to the mix and you had a mess of emotions. I LOVED how the first two movies had the right amount of action AND drama (the second was masterful at that in my opinion), but there's was a little too much emotion in this movie for my taste (coming from a guy who loves deep, emotional movies).
Gwen Stacy was ruined from the start of the series and never should have made an appearance in my opinion, but she was included and I can deal with that.
But there are also good points. The action is very good, the movie does not fail to entertain, and there are some well represented events and characters, some doing justice to those in the comics. The portrayal of Sandman was a very touching one, and Thomas Haden Church did an excellent job. James Franco did a good job as well, although his psychotic nature (and voice) as the Goblin didn't QUITE live up to the history of the character.
Overall, there were faults that made this clearly the runt of the trilogy thus far, but the movie is still packed with enough action, special effects, emotion and suspense to keep the average Spidey fan (and moviegoer) happy. A solid film at least.