My Spidey Sense should have warned me about this movie.

Rating: 4/10 (4 May 2007)

Lord save me from the Idiot Plot! It's bad enough when it infests romantic comedies and thrillers, but when it starts to invade previously strong super hero film franchises, that's where I start getting annoyed. Spider-Man 3 is an overblown, overstuffed, joyless fiasco that is riddled with plot holes and character motivations and actions that make no sense at all. Series director Sam Raimi seems to have lost the confidence that guided the previous two films, and has given us an overly juvenile romantic melodrama broken up by over the top action sequences that are often soulless.
Young hero Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is finally starting to enjoy some success as his alter ego, Spider-Man. We can tell early on that success is starting to go to Parker's head, and so can his girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). She's feeling left out, since Spider-Man pretty much dominates his life. Peter has plans to propose to Mary Jane, but there's never the opportunity to do so. It certainly doesn't help that there's a certain pretty young aspiring model named Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who seems to be attracted to both of Peter's identities. Because the movie is infected by the curse of the Idiot Plot, Peter never says anything, and keeps on letting things escalate out of his control. He even intentionally makes things worse by sharing a kiss with Gwen in public in front of Mary Jane. Why, you ask, would he do this when he's planning to propose to M.J.? Because if he didn't, there wouldn't be any reason for turmoil in the relationship. His actions answer solely to the plot.
Aside from the romantic melodrama, the web slinger has three different villains to contend with. Peter's former best friend, Harry Osborn (James Franco), still is holding a grudge against him and has decided to follow in his crazy villain dad's footsteps, and is now zooming around the city as the New Goblin, hell-bent on killing Peter. There's also a convict on the run by the name of Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church) who, while on the run from the cops, unknowingly goes running into a massive science experiment and in the process gets his molecules rearranged and mixed with sand particles so that he can literally change his form into that of a hulking monster made of sand that kind of looks like King Kong crossed with kitty litter. Oh, did I forget to mention there's also a black blob-like substance from outer space that recently crashed nearby the city? This is tied into our third villain, Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), who is a freelance photographer at Parker's day job at the Daily Bugle, and he's vying for a permanent position. When Parker humiliates him on the job, that's reason enough to drive the guy psycho. When he comes into contact with the alien substance, he's transformed into a black Spider-Man like monstrosity called Venom, who solely acts as a special effect for the film's climactic action sequence.
Spider-Man 3 is so stuffed with plot, characters, and filler material (including an out of the blue musical dance number in a jazz club) that the movie can barely contain it all within its nearly two and a half hour length. Plot points and characters are introduced and dropped seemingly at whim. What made the previous Spider-Man films work is that they were much more intimate affairs. We were drawn into Peter's world, and the films mainly centered on a small group of characters. This time around, there's too many characters and too many story lines vying for our attention. Even long-standing memorable supporting characters are generally shafted, and seem to exist only because they were in the other movies. Peter's loving Aunt May pops up just long enough to spew out some Yoda-like fortune cookie advice to him in one or two scenes, and the comical blustering windbag boss as the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson is reduced to a mere forgettable cameo.
The action sequences have largely lost the personal touch that was found in the previous films as well. We are no longer watching characters we have come to be interested in doing battle, but merely a multi million dollar special effects reel. That's because the villains are the most forgettable bunch to ever grace a Spider-Man film. Flint Marko initially seems intriguing and a somewhat tortured villain, but as soon as he gets in that lab accident, he stops being human and spends most of the movie as a towering CG sand monster who rips through the city. We never get a chance to truly know him, since he completely disappears for a large chunk of the film, only to come back for the climactic showdown as the Stay Puff Sandman. Eddie Brock/Venom comes across even worse, as we never get a truly successful story for him, or a reason why he should even be there in the first place. The movie hints at a number of possible reasons for Brock to hate Peter/Spider-Man, but never elaborates on them. Like everything else, it is barely touched upon and comes and goes whenever the screenplay sees fit.
I'm not so delusional as to think this review will have any affect on the film's box office. Spider-Man 3 is certain to make a killing this weekend, and will probably go on to produce some big numbers. The question is, like all summer blockbusters, how will it be remembered? When all the hype, fast food promotions, and fanfare go away, you're forced to see the movie for what it really is. Spider-Man 3 has a lot of plots and special effects trying their hardest to prevent us from seeing just how hollow it really is at its center.