bad moments, and great moments

Rating: 8/10 (7 May 2007)

Opening the 2007 summer movie season is Spider-Man 3, the ridiculously anticipated follow-up to its acclaimed 2002 and 2004 predecessors. What results is a film that finally shows the goofy, corny, yet extremely enjoyable style of director Sam Raimi. Still, the rumors are true, Spider-Man 3 does have too much going on, with about five different story lines tossed around. Raimi does a fairly competent job stringing them all together, but there isn't enough time to actually give some of the characters enough development. However, for all of the film's flaws, there are plenty of strengths.
First of all, the film is extremely entertaining to watch, with its nearly two and a half hour running time breezing by. Toby Maguire returns as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, who struggles with issues involving his girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). Now becoming more of a threat to his life than a personal problem is Peter's former best friend, Harry Osborn (James Franco), and his eagerness to avenge his father's death by donning the Green Goblin mask. Yet another storyline concerns a desolate criminal named Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) who may have been the actual killer of Peter's uncle. Spider-Man also scuffles with a rival photographer named Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) who eventually transforms into a creature known as Venom, and wrestles with his own impending dark side.
With so much to keep track of in such a loaded film, characters like Venom and Flint Marko (The Sandman) don't receive enough screen time to really make an impact. Perhaps some story lines could have been saved for future films, in order to develop the more crucial characters. On the other hand, many segments are thoroughly cultivated, with Harry Osborn's relationship with Peter being one of the best handled elements of the film.
One sequence of the film causing much polarity amongst audiences is when Spider-Man fully embraces his dark side and his new black spidey suit. Instead of Peter being ruthless and dark, Raimi makes him absurdly pompous. Rather than getting what was advertised as the darkest of the Spider-Man movies, we receive a very fun superhero film with great action sequences and many hysterical moments, including a cameo by the legendary Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead trilogy) as a French maitre'd.
While definitely far from great, Spider-Man 3 has a notable distinction being that in spite of much of the clichéd dialogue and over the top moments, the film still succeeds in what it intends to do, which is to entertain. Raimi was certainly aware of what he was making, packing enough action, comedy, and strong performances to obscure the cringe inducing moments.