And it was all going so well

Rating: 3/10 (5 July 2014)

He did such a good job with Spiderman 1 and 2 that it's kinda hard to understand how director Sam Raimi could screw up so badly with part 3.
It doesn't take long for the problems to start, with a meteor falling within spitting distance of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) as they lay staring at the stars on a giant web hammock. Forget the astronomical chances of just being in the same vicinity as a falling meteor; what are the chances of a superhero with heightened senses being in the same vicinity as a falling meteor containing a malevolent symbiotic alien and remaining completely oblivious, even as the creature latches onto the back of his moped? Unbelievable, huh?
Unfortunately, it only gets worse from here-on in
Just like 'the man of steel' in part 3 of the '70s/'80s Superman movie series, this chapter in the Spiderman franchise sees Peter Parker turning bad (after the symbiote attaches itself to his costume), only here the transformation from superhero to super-jerk isn't handled anywhere near as successfully, Maguire unable to pull off 'menacing' anywhere near as convincingly as he does 'dorky'. Putting a bit of dark makeup under the eyes and allowing the actor's hair to flop down at the front simply doesn't cut it.
Meanwhile, Mary Jane and Harry Osborn (James Franco) are getting close once again, having a quick snog after an impromptu twist dancing session in the kitchen. If this scene doesn't strike you as awkward, then howsabout the god-awful sequence that has Peter strutting down the street, doing the 'wink and gun' gesture to all the pretty ladies? Embarrassing doesn't even begin to describe it. This is followed soon-after by Peter visiting the bar where MJ works and shaking his booty with Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), girlfriend of his Daily Bugle rival Eddie Brock (Topher Grace). Jeez, Sam, couldn't you see how bad this scene would be when you wrote it?
The cringes continue as Brock becomes the next victim of the symbiote, turning into Venom and teaming up with Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) to try and take down Spiderman once and for all. The pair of super-villains kidnap Mary Jane and suspend her in a giant web between skyscrapers to lure the webslinger into a trap. If, like me, you thought that earlier fight scenes stretched plausibility to breaking point, what happens next will have you choking in disbelief. The level of violence that Peter Parker can endure without severe injury is most impressive, the guy withstanding physical punishment that would even have the Incredible Hulk throwing in the towel.
Just as things actually start to look bad for Spidey, his good-friend-turned-archenemy Harry turns up to help in the battle, having finally been told by his butler that Peter Parker wasn't responsible for his father's death. Hooray for the butler! The little kids watching the fight shout 'Awesome!' and 'Wicked Cool', Kirtsen Dunst does her best (but fails) to look scared, Spiderman defeats Venom through the use of sound-waves and one of Harry's explosive devices which conveniently limits its blast radius to a few feet, and Sandman says he's sorry and floats away on the wind. All of which is as bad, or if not worse, than it sounds.
Oh well, at least after this debacle, Raimi wisely returned to the safety of the horror genre, giving us the entertaining Drag Me To Hell as his next movie. Let's be thankful for small mercies.