Hmmm....

Rating: 6/10 (5 May 2007)

Opening night last night and I was there. Good lord, this film is long - too long. There's enough content in it to fill three pictures, and with each the mood and genre appears to change radically. I never thought I could say I'd seen too much of Spidey, but sometimes less is more.
The first half of the film is pretty much as you'd expect the story to continue from the second movie. However, there are way too many characters and sub-plots going on which seem to scream an urgency to move onto the next scene as soon as possible. Even then, like I say, the film is still a long stretch.
Some of the diversions from the comic's established story arc are good (it keeps everybody guessing), and this is especially so with Harry. However, Gwen Stacy appears out of place in this film (and James Cromwell as her father has far too little airtime to warrant an inclusion too).
Without giving anything away, the latter half of the film just drags - full of CGI and action sequences - but it could have been edited together far better. When the closure of the film does finally come, it limps past the post so that you almost feel cheated out of what was established in the previous films. It's a bit like the old Superman films not finishing with Christopher Reeve circling the globe and smiling to camera. You expect Spidey to put his costume on one last time and go swinging through New York's skyline into the sunset. He doesn't. No rousing orchestra, just a fade to black.
Maybe that's Sam's subtle way of getting the audience to want another sequel, but I felt a little short-changed for all of the pizazz and pomp quite obviously invested in the special effects.
I've a feeling that there'll be one more film - Dr Connors' Lizard will emerge, along with the Scorpion probably (because J.Jonah Jameson's instrumental in his history, it'll make up for J.K.Symond's lack of airtime this time around). Personally, I think that this film starts the downward trend of popularity with the franchise, but as Tobey McGuire said, if all the same cast and crew can be convinced, maybe one more outing wouldn't be a bad thing.