Awful adaptation, worse sequel!

Rating: 2/10 (7 April 2010)

A truckload of insults will be thrust in this review toward Spider-Man 3. As an avid fan of the television show years ago, in the 90's, and as a big fan of the comic books, I can safely say this film failed on truly showing and grasping many aspects of Peter's rise and fall with relation to Venom.
Topher Grace wasn't terrible as Eddie Brock/Venom, but he wasn't the right build. As far as the comic books, video games and TV shows go, Spider-man is agile and quick whereas Venom is violent and powerful. Eddie Brock in Spider-Man 3 is near the same size as Peter Parker. I'm not convinced he can overpower Spider-Man in his Venom form.
Spider-Man 3 interweaves too much for the viewer to concentrate on. There's a love triangle between Mary Jane, Peter and Harry. There's another one between Peter, Eddie and Gwen. There's another one between Peter, Gwen and Mary Jane. Throw in The Sandman's story and then make Eddie Brock turn into Venom, unconvincingly, and now let's make Harry turn into the Green Goblin. It's too much story and only about 10 minutes of action.
You can't make this movie into a tag-team match and hope everyone will love it. Venom being killed off so quickly and with such ease was a big reason for this movie being such a terrible piece of film. Venom is a principle character in the Spider-Man chronicles and Venom is the most popular villain for Spider-Man.
Venom never spoke in the first person, singular. He spoke in first person, plural. Venom always spoke as himself saying, "we know about you, Spider-Man." In the film, he spoke in the singular first person, and he spoke without the symbiote on his face. I don't mind watching Topher's acting abilities of being "the bad guy" but Venome always spoke with his true face.
Kirsten Dunst has lost so much face with audiences and in this one, she feels more like a secondary character. As well, she should since we have four super heroes/villains taking up the majority of screen-time.
It's really a shame that Sam Raimi couldn't repeat his amazing level of adaptation he did in the first two films for this one. It would have been wonderful to see him really put on a great show.
Fans of the comic books and TV show (and even the video games) will not like this instalment of Spider-Man and I don't know the ones who haven't read the comic books or watched the show could enjoy this one.
Peter spends too much time being a total ass, Mary Jane spends too much time pining over Harry while still "loving" Peter, and the rest of the cast suck up the screen time pointlessly.
I suggest you grab Spider-Man 1 or 2 and re-watch them because you're just wasting your time on Spider-Man 3. Skip it.