A Hurried Mess, But Not Terrible

Rating: Null/10 (16 July 2011)

"Spider-Man 3" reunites Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, and director Sam Raimi, who also co-writes the script with brother Ivan, and, unfortunately, falls between the same cracks as many other threequels released in 2007 (e.g. "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"): Too much content is forcibly shoved and messily pieced together in too short of a time.
As the longest of the three "Spider-Man" films by twenty or so minutes, one would think that a little extra layer to the script could work fine in the hands of a talented and innovative filmmaker such as Raimi; but a preponderance of subplots that lack both linearity and substance throughout the overall context of the story, leaves this film feeling out of place and messy in comparison with its much more superior predecessors.
In the first film, Raimi, who is very ardent in his belief that not everything in a film needs to be built in the computer, brilliantly integrated a mix of traditional and computer effects into great-looking sequences. This was accentuated in "Spider-Man 2", but for this third film the computer effects seem to dominate, taking away from what I found to be part of what made its predecessors so enjoyable. Not only does the computer seem to overtake the film in several sequences (notably the heavy action scenes), but, with more than one exception (the "Birth of the Sandman" sequence for instance), the effects look like cheap, quickly-thrown-together renderings.
The first two films had brilliant moments of well-placed comic relief (Peter learning to swing in the first film; the lust-struck daughter of Peter's landlord in the second film), but this film seems uncertain as to what genre it is: One minute it feels like a poorly-made drama; one second a cheesy comedy; then it's a musical; a romance - it all feels congested and muddled, and more often than not add nothing but time to the movie.
Three villains take the stage this time: Venom (played by Topher Grace); The Sandman (Thomas Haden Church); and Harry Osbourne (James Franco) as an amped-up and wimped-down "New Goblin": Unlike the well- staged emotion created between both first William Dafoe's Goblin then Alfred Molina's Doc. Oc in the first and second films, the villains in this film are introduced with no substance, resonance, or realism, thus leaving the inevitable resolve between good and evil during the film's falling action feeling less like a resolve and more like a cheap cop-out of an ending. The only real emotional connection made from screen to viewer is toward the final five minutes of the film, during Church's performance in his final scene, in which he repents his sins and asks for forgiveness.
The acting is terrible in the film overall: Maguire, as Parker/Spider- Man is stiff and seems to be trying too hard to be funny; Dunst plays as if she doesn't even want to be part of the project; Franco is halfway between being maniacal and comical; Topher Grace (Eddie Brock/Venom) is un-intimidating and over-the-top. The only two decent performances in the film are those by Rosemary Harris (Aunt May) and Thomas Haden Church as Flint Marko/The Sandman.
The film is, nonetheless, well-made for what it is. The bad acting can be justified by a lackluster script, as can be the clutter of the story and the tediousness of the useless subplots and weak villains. Sam Raimi takes what is given him and delivers a film that is neither bad nor good, but enjoyable. While this is by far the weakest of the three films, it is made with skill and style from the director, is decently shot, pieced together well for what there is to work with, - but at the end of it all it still leaves a bit of a sour taste in one's mouth if they are fans of the first two films and expected something up to par.
A not-so-bad effort that pieced together a cluttered mess of a story.