One big mess - Overlong and over-plotted.

Rating: 6/10 (2 October 2009)

When I saw the first Spiderman back in 2002 I thought it was brilliant and that Sam Raimi had superbly conveyed the superhero successfully to the big screen.
Then two years later Spiderman 2 came out and it was even better, with more strands of plot included, but it was tightly packed and the film showed real depth and exploration of the characters emotions with the various stock situations that were taking place.
With Spiderman 2 being so flawless I had extremely high expectations for the third and I have to say I was quite disappointed. But first the positives of this film and one thing that cannot be criticised is the special effects of the suits namely Spidey's and the dark suit and when Sandman changes from dust to figure is awesome to look at making the CGI improved from the second.
The acting from the big three, Magurie, Dunst and Franco is as good as it ever was with the additional support in particular Thomas Church as Sandman was great and the action sequences were exciting, which made it entertaining but unfortunately that is all I could pull that I liked from this film.
Unfortunately the rest of the film and the problem mainly being the plot, it was just too long and too much included.
For example we not only get Sandman and Venom but the return of the Green Goblin and Spidey's dark side coming out and to add Peters relationship with Mary Jane is under threat.
The movie crumbles under it's own weight with so many plot lines. I found the stories difficult to follow and instead of flowing naturally like the second, which if you remember had one main story and a few sub-plots, it felt clichéd.
For example when the Harry bumps his head during his fight with Peter and gets amnesia just felt ridiculous. Not to mention that fight sequence was edited too fast. I felt dizzy when watching it.
But the core problem of the plot was it lacked the emotional involvement of the characters as everything happens so quickly because there is so much to include.
What's also gone is the humour that helped make the first two more humanistic and made that character development go a bit further.
This made me feel as though the film was just going through the motions.
Another criticism is parts of the acting, Maguire for example when he came out with his dark side, his attempt at portraying a villain was pathetically foolish and Dunst became irritating with her character MJ moaning all the time.
Some of the other scenes like when Harry finds out his father killed himself from his servant Bernard who (if you can remember him) was a very minor character in the first two tells him that, but how would he know? You hardly ever saw him.
In the end to put it simply Raimi tried to be too clever by including more than he should have and we have been left with a film that is one big mess.
I would suggest he should have just had the Green Goblin and Sandman for this film as the dark suit and Venom link, which could have been left to the next film.
It was still entertaining and I recommend you see it, but be prepared to be disappointed as this isn't spectacular. Lets hope this is just a glitch is what has been a superb franchise and that Spiderman 4 will be much improved.