Good movie, just not what I was expecting...

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2007)

Let me start by saying that Spiderman 3 was a good movie; though I was expecting it to be a lot more than just good. Spiderman 1 was, to coin a phrase, amazing! Spiderman 2 was Spectacular! (better than amazing) Spiderman 3 however just didn't live up to the quality of the first two movies. I did like the film, but it just didn't go in the right direction for me. The first two followed the comic/animated series pretty loyally, but in the 3rd one, I think Rami and his brother decided to thrown in their own Hollywood plot twists that might end up leaving a lot of the more knowledgeable fans feeling a bit confused and alienated. Its hard to get into details without spoiling the plot, but lets just say that the story works, provided they follow it up with another 3 movies like the rumours have stated, and that they really go back to their comic book roots with the next films. If this is the finale to a trilogy however, I think there are going to be a lot of unhappy fan-boys (and girls) stomping on their Spiderman DVDs.
I agree with what someone else said about the directors trying to cram too many characters into the story, but they could have made it work had they changed gears slightly. Again I will say that a lot of comic fans are going to be more than a bit upset when they find out how many times the characters in the movie completely ignore their own persona that they have in the comics... I guess the biggest let down is simply that the first two movies were spot on from a geek's perspective while still allowing new fans to understand everything that was going on whereas this movie didn't do the series justice in that respect.
There are some absolutely incredible effects however, and Spiderman/Parker and Mary Jane hold pretty true to their characters... in fact it was mostly Hary and Venom that let me down.