Would have been better as 3 separate movies

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2007)

The individual parts of Spidey 3 were very well done. Overall, I was entertained, but the whole thing did seem more than a bit disjointed and cobbled together. It took forever to get going and the three main story lines didn't really mesh at all until near the end--and even then, the convergence of the three was clumsily handled.
It was as if they made three really, really good episodes of a Spiderman TV show, each with its own story arc, and then forcibly edited the them all into one feature film. They used to do this with popular TV shows like "Man From Uncle" and "The Virginian" back in the 60s.
As I watched the story lines of S3 slowly unfold I couldn't help but think that each of them--the Sandman's story, the New Goblin story, and the Venom story--was being shortchanged, and that each would have been better if filled out to about an hour and a half on its own. But when a flick costs about a quarter of a billion bucks, I guess they think you should get at least three movies worth for your ticket money--but I'd rather pay three times and get three really good movies instead!