Movie Review: Spider-Man 3

Rating: 7/10 (1 May 2007)

Would it be fair to say that 3 is not better than 2? That is if I make a comparison between Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man 2. But regardless of comparison, Spider-Man 3 is not a bad movie. It just isn't great, that's all.
The movie began with a lengthy title intro, throwing in snippets from the movie Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, which left me with a bad feeling to how things will turn out. The intro wasn't well done. It was quite shabby, even lazy if to put it more harshly. Aesthetically speaking it wasn't impressive.
It was like as if portraying the way Peter Parker a.k.a Spider-Man is living his life after being celebrated as the city's hero. Life is good, so good that our hero has forgotten his place and purpose. Spider-Man, in this latest from the franchise is missing its spunk. It has forgotten what made it great. I'm talking about having the audience emotionally touched by Peter Parker's struggle, having mind-blowing actions that leaves the audience in awe, and the impact of the dialogues that inspires.
My suspect is that the filmmakers tried to put too much into this movie. There must be something somewhere that went amiss producing it.
Let me explain. While the main focus of the film revolves around our hero's disposition from fighting the darkness that exists in him, there were too many sub-plots that took away and undermine it. There was the love story between Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). There was the meaning of friendship between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn (James Franco). There was Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) being linked to the murder of Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson). And there was Venom (Topher Grace).
With so many motives to act out, it is inevitable that the film would fall short. There are too many pieces in this puzzle too trying to piece together in one film, despite its length. The tempo is really slow right from the start. If not for the hilarious-ness of some scenes, with quite a few notably of James Jameson (J.K. Simmons), Peter's boss at the Daily Bugle, the movie can be considered rather dry for a comic genre film.
Sandman and Venom, the main villains, were not well depicted. There were supposed to be much more about them, yet in the film they were reduced to just mere bad guys with bad luck that ultimately led them to become Spider-Man's foe. Character play is weak.
It is agonizing to see Spider-Man 3 following X-Men 3's path of condensing story lines and mixing in Superman Returns's mellow love story attempt. This is not the best formula for an inspirational Superhero movie.
The last fight sequence toward the end where Spider-Man battles Sandman and Venom though became the savior for this Superhero film. Thank goodness for it.
All in all, "With great power comes great responsibilities" wasn't that great. But I'll like to agree with this message that Spider-Man 3 brings and that is in life we are given choices, some will lead to good and some will be bad. When confronted can you do the right thing?
Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) told Peter Parker in the film, "Do yourself a favor by first doing the most difficult thing, forgive yourself."
All of us had made choices in our lives. For all those that went wrong, there is no longer anything we can do about them, but we can always learn from them so we can make right choices in time to come.
At least that part in Spider-Man 3 is right. "May" Spider-Man 4 be "right" after 3.