Spiderman 3: Objective review

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2007)

An opinion of Spiderman 3 is hard to communicate without including spoilers, but this is an honest attempt. I actually am unsure if any of what I have written is without spoilers, completely, so I have marked it as containing them just in case.
I enjoyed the first Spiderman. The second, in my opinion, was a bit worse in some parts, and I generally didn't find the casting choice in the part of Doc Oc to be the best it could have been, but what casting is these days? With that in mind, I felt Spiderman 3 was an obvious progression of the plot that had already materialized, with some exceptions.
It is quite obvious that the director's intentions were never to put Venom in this film at all. His inclusion, while it was a great concession to the Venom fans and an excellent portrayal of his aesthetic qualities, was quite limited and, honestly, the arc of Brock and Venom (referring to the alien entity as well as the villain) was fulfilled in such a manner that I have a very large aversion to watching the following entry in the series.
In similar fashion, Harry Osborne's character arc (technically an extension and a continuation of his father's, the Green Goblin's overall story) was scripted in such a way that I, as a reader of the Spiderman comics in my youth, was greatly disappointed.
Yet, these two complaints are the most glaring errors made in the direction of the third entry. Indeed, they are almost irrevocable affronts to many fans, the mainstream film audience, and its notions of continuity in the motion picture plot of "Spiderman", has been thought of first and foremost. It is a good film, overall, and contains many of the same scenes and sub-plots that cause some to cringe and others to merely yawn and wait for the plot to resume, as is typical in any film expected to gross a large amount in theaters.
In my final observations, however, I find myself unable to resign myself to the finale of the film, in regards to the second villain, The Sandman. I will say nothing of the events itself, only that I felt that the final minutes of the movie were contrived and telling of both the director's and Maguire's stated interest in, and favoritism toward, the "Sandman" character (compared to the apparent dislike of Venom, Carnage, and other such brutal villains). This is, of course, my opinion, and I will ask all to keep that in mind. I can only hope that speculation is true in the case of The Lizard taking a central role in the following installment, which I feel may very well breed interest in the film within myself (and, I suspect, many others), due to the general incomplete nature and unsatisfying conclusion of this entry in the Spiderman film canon.