Entertaining, but not up to the standard set by Raimi himself.

Rating: 6/10 (28 April 2009)

In this third instalment of the popular comic book franchise, Spider-Man is up against not one, not two, but three opponents. A black gooey alien symbiote that's just conveniently crash landed from outer space and heightens the inner evil (or mildly testy, as the case is here) of anyone it attaches itself to, The Sandman who is yet another product of a freak accident and The Green Goblin's son, Harry, who slips onto Dad's glider for a little revenge, plus the addition of rival love interest Gwen Stacy to complicate Spidey's relationship with girlfriend Mary Jane Watson and the issue of Eddie Brock, a photographer who is vying for Peter's job to further complicate matters for the wall crawler.
From reading that overlong sentence, you can just about get an idea of the movie - unnecessarily jam packed with too much information. The movie begins where the last left off, with Peter and Mary Jane very much in love and Peter and Harry very much in hate. On his way home, Peter is ambushed by a newly re-muscled Harry on his glider, providing us with our very first set-piece of the movie. This is a painstakingly planned sequence, director Sam Raimi doing what he does best with his camera. Unfortunately, one cannot help but notice some of the awful full body CGI stunt men doubling for Harry and Peter. If you are eagle eyed enough to notice, you'll see this popping up throughout, jolting the viewer out of the movie.
Next we are introduced to Flint Marko, a criminal on the run who, after visiting his dying daughter, falls into a sand pit in which an unexplained particle experiment is going on (don't people read danger signs anymore?) and becomes one with the sand particles, able to shape shift and get in places people didn't know they could get sand in. The Sandman seems nothing more than another version of The Mummy, but nevertheless, Raimi manages to conjure up some interesting new visuals. The shame of it all is that the poor guy is in fact non-essential to the movie overall. His back story is a wholly unnecessary addition to events in the first Spider-Man movie and serves only to provide evil, black suited Spidey with some questionable actions to execute as a result of emotional turmoil. By the end of the film, Sandman is nothing more than a big, hulking, growling CG creation and finally, a footnote to be checked off the list of loose ends to tie up. The most telling piece of information is in the very first featurette on the DVD. Producer Avi Arad's first words to camera are how Sandman was a great opportunity for CGI. Ah. It all makes sense.
Now we come to yet another plot point, in which the alien goop connects itself to Peter's suit, creating a black suited Spidey, or 'evil' Spidey. Evil Spidey is not given a great deal of evil to actually do. Evil for Spidey is simply combing his hair downwards and behaving like a lad who has had one too many pints down the pub. Maguire does quite an impressive job conveying the 'quasi evil' side of Spidey and is obviously having fun with it, but is constricted by the limitations of the script.
There are some potentially rich character developments which are squandered in favour of packing in as much as possible. Gwen Stacy, a pivotal character in the comics who was forfeited in favour of skipping straight to Mary Jane for the first film, is wasted here in a silly subplot to make Mary Jane jealous. For what it's worth, Bryce Dallas Howard is still charming in the role, but she is short changed in favour of simply having her show up and say 'hi' to comic book fans. There's also a jarring bit of lazy resolution in the use of a shameless deus ex machina to resolve Harry's story, something which sours the rest of the film more than the overstuffed showdowns and multiple endings. Finally, Venom, fan favourite, is created by Peter's leftover goop attaching itself to Eddie Brock, played sarcastically by Topher Grace. Criminally, this happens in the last reel, giving Venom precious little screen time and rendering him another side note. He would have been better served either as main villain or as an appetite whetter for part 4 in the final frame.
This is a prime example of sacrificing the integrity of story, character and structure simply to give the fans on the internet what they're screaming to see. Ironically, it's the same fans that tear the film apart after it's release. Despite that, there are still plenty of things to enjoy about this film. The various action sequences, while seemingly rushed are still spectacular and fun to watch, the now famous Saturday Night Fever strut equally so and an amusing, if slightly out of place cameo from Raimi regular Bruce Campbell as an inept Maitre d' is bound to raise a smile.
As a cinematic experience, Spider-Man 3 is not completely unsatisfying. It contains all the fun, zest and passion for the material as the first two but the over-stuffed narrative and short changing of potentially dynamic characters is an unforgivable mistake and the law of diminishing returns threatens to plague the web crawler still further should this series continue. By the finale, all the story lines have crashed into each other messily, culminating in yet another MJ hostage situation, begging the question, do these villains have no imagination?
THE BOTTOM LINE: Good solid blockbuster fun with all the trimmings of the first two, but bigger, faster, louder and more is not always the best policy. Multiple story lines are deftly woven together for most of the running time but clumsily crash together in the finale. Better than most sequels, but not as good as the standard that this franchise sets for itself.