Fun movie, though WAY too much camp and Sandman.

Rating: 6/10 (4 May 2007)

Spider-Man 3 - After having his life virtually suck every which way in #2, Peter Parker/Spiderman (Tobey Maguire)is the hero of New York in #3. He's beloved by the public, open about himself with Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), and Peter gets a bad-ass black symbiote suit. What could go wrong? Three things (well more like two, but more on that later). His Uncle Ben's killer is not the man we saw in the first movie but actually Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church in a plot change I do NOT like) a low-level thug who obtains sand-powers and super strength. Peter's former best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco), aka Goblin Jr., knows Peter's alter ego and is hellbent on revenge. And lastly Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), Peter's photographer-rival and antithesis gets the symbiote suit to become.....VENOM. Oh, and Peter's relationship with Mary Jane breaks down, again.
If that sounded like a mouthful of a plot, trust me, it's not when you see it on screen. It's pretty easy to follow if you've seen the other movies. And as for the scoffing at the mysterious and convenient plot device of the symbiote suit, no one complained at Peter inexplicably losing his spider powers in #2.
I've read several reviews of this film, good and bad, and braced myself for the worst (and hoped it wasn't true). This is a decent movie. It's not anywhere up to the level of the 2nd movie, which was less of an action movie and more of a focus on Peter (seriously, no one else in that film got even a quarter of the screen-time he did) getting sucker-punched every which way. All the adults liked it, and I grew to love it.
This time, there's action all around, with at least five very fun action sequences that show us just exactly what that ungodly sum of money they spent on this film went into. The aforementioned symbiote suit augments Peter's strength and agility and turns Peter into an Emo beatnik jerk that watched 50's gangster musicals way too many times, and it's absolutely hilarious.
The whole "bad-Peter" worked for me (it may not for other people) because I've known all along that Peter's a nerdy boyscout, and a nerdy boyscout going bad is just going to think of archetypes of badness. James Dean anyone? With all the old Marvel groups getting a revamp into now-time approximately, it IS disorienting to see Spidey still into the 50s and 60s. Maguire's at the top of his game here, and I liked his performance a lot.
However at times this movie seemed too funny for a Spidey movie. J.K. Simmons and Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell were all hysterical but the film accessed the cheese and camp factor a little too much, suggesting that Raimi looked to his own roots for this picture, which can be a bad thing depending on your feelings for the Evil Dead series. Topher Grace and James Franco were a treat for me, they were having fun and loving every minute of their screen-time as rightful bad-asses. After two films Franco is finally given something to do, and he was wonderful. Grace is funny and quirky, and his turn as Venom should not disappoint to all but the stingiest of fans.
Thomas Haden Church as Sandman turned out to be the crutch of the whole movie for me. It wasn't his fault. He's a good actor. The writing in of him being the *accidental* killer of Uncle Ben, as well as giving Sandman an "ill" daughter to make us feel sympathy for him, stung of cheap manipulation. Why not give him AIDs and an animal shelter to run as well? The effects used to show his powers were wondrous. Why bog it down with melodrama? The whole "give the villains some pity" was Sam Raimi trying to replicate the "good doctor" thing with Doctor Octopus from Spiderman 2. Raimi doesn't realize that villains don't always need a long sympathetic back-story. Some people are just @ssholes. This film needed less of Sandman and waaaaay more of Venom. HE was terrifying and his situation understandable. If Raimi had done more with him the film would've been better.
It's still a good film, though from all the backlash I hear, you'll probably love or hate this movie depending on your tastes. I give no definites on liking this one or not. If you liked Spider-man 2 but not 1 you'll probably dislike this movie. In any cases you'll probably have a few gripes as I do, cause it's not a perfect film. It has a good conclusion and does the first two justice for the most part. I know I'll probably see it again.
I give it a B-