7.0/10?

Rating: 8/10 (7 May 2007)

The ratings are going to change a lot until the movie is out of theaters, but I am visiting right now and see Spidey 3 with 7.0/10. 7???? Excuse me, but there is something wrong here. I'll start out with all the things that went wrong with this film.
1. Montage Sequence: Peter has turned darker, and seeing him flirting with ladies in the street was very painful the first time I saw it. Second time I was able to laugh it off because you realize how much the symbiote is affecting him.
2. Adding things: This is honestly the last thing I found wrong with the film. I disagree with character development, I think they gave just enough character development room for us to figure out who everybody was, but they were so dangerously close to falling short that people really believed they fell short. But you can honestly describe all the characters in the film; if you couldn't, then there would be a problem. Gwen Stacy had the least character development but she was only a tool to make Eddie Brock hateful and MJ jealous.
The first minute or so of the film was also cheesy but that was so short that it didn't distract too much from the film. Now onto the positive notes: 1. Villains: Who cares if there are three villains, they were all still cool. Sandman was a classic, Harry was the best, and Venom had terrifying power, beating up Spiderman the whole time and practically killing MJ. Harry was the best by far, I loved the fight in his apartment/mansion. That leads me to a little more about him.
2. Harry: After Harry's "accident", he becomes such a lovable guy and his character was the second best (next to Peter). Plus he become evil just like his father did and his death scene is phenomenal.
3. Emotional Scenes: The other films haven't tried that hard to make you cry, this time around you want to cry so bad. When Peter and MJ break up I was on the verge of tears, it was so hurtful to see what had become of their relationship and Peter was so in love that he could barely maintain himself (and this is when he loses it). Harry's death scene also had me choked up, since he was still good at heart and sacrificed his life for his best friend, and knew it was his time. How sad.
4. Darkness: I was reading one review that said in the film's attempt to be dark it become light-hearted and humorous and was not effective. I find this to be completely untrue, except for the montage sequence. After Peter's fight with Sandman in the subway he sees himself in the mirror and it is very scary to see him. Then comes the painful montage sequence, but it's still dark because of how cynical and distant Pete has become. The club scene was dark once he went up to MJ after his little dance number. When he hits her he sees the monster he has become. Before this though, the darkness and tension was almost unbearable for me. Once Peter runs away I wanted so badly for Peter to come back because I felt so bad for him (the last time I choked up during a film was several years ago, and I'm a guy so I normally don't get that sad). The church scene then comes and the transition between Peter removing the symbiote and it landing on Eddie was probably the darkest scene I was terrified out of my mind.
Fight scenes: All the fight scenes were well-handled; a little bit short but still epic in its proportions. My two personal favorites were Peter disorienting Harry's face and the Venom/Sandman vs. New Goblin/Spider-Man. The other two with Sandman and Harry were thrilling but didn't measure up to the fight scenes of Spider-Man 2.
Mary Jane: Mary Jane is finally becoming a woman, but with no one there for her (also kind of her fault since she never told Peter she was fired), but I feel bad for her too.
Overall there wasn't too much wrong with the film. I think the movie originally was three hours or something and they cut out anything that they felt didn't need to be there. I also was disappointed with the closing because there is now a cloudy future between MJ and Peter's extremely fragile new relationship. I really think they just needed to extend scenes and push the movie up to three hours, and make the montage sequence truly dark instead of painful. 7.0? Spider-Man got a 7.4, and this film was way better than that. It deserves a 7.6 or 7.7 at least. If they make a fourth film, they should not let Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi help; blame them for letting them work with the script, Alvin Sargent worked alone on Spidey 2 which was outstanding. We WILL Spidey 4 because of the unknown future of Peter and MJ.
Overall, I give this a movie an 8.4. I don't mind if it dons't get ratings higher than Spider-Man 2, but it is better than Spider-Man by miles. Go Spidey go!