An Extreme Let Down From Its Predecessors

Rating: 6/10 (9 May 2016)

Spiderman 3 is directed by Sam Raimi and is the final installment of the Raimi Spiderman trilogy, after Spiderman (2002) and Spiderman 2 (2004). Now that nerdy college kid Peter Parker has got the girl, he can focus solely on being Spiderman during the day, rather than having to deal with girl drama, right? Well, when three (yes, three) new villains come to town, he must put aside his relationship with Mary Jane and fight Venom, Sandman, and Green Goblin number 2.
The above paragraph sounds confusing and partly inconceivable, and that's pretty much how this whole film was. Spiderman 3 was an absolute mess, relying just on the nostalgia of fanboys to carry it. Not much was going for this film, but, to its credit, what was going for it was really good, such as direction and special effects. However, an overabundance of characters and subplots, a bad script, and some very poor acting pulled this movie way below the bar.
The thing that surprised me the most about Spiderman 3 is Tobey Maguire's acting. All throughout the first two Spiderman films, Tobey Maguire was great as both Peter Parker and Spidey. However, Maguire's acting abilities in Spiderman 3 were just not present. In this installment, Maguire had to play Peter, "bad" Peter, Spiderman, and "bad" Spiderman, and he just couldn't handle it. It pains me to say that Tobey Maguire's acting in this film was less than mediocre, and he could've done way better, to say the least.
Not much of the other actors did that great either. Both Kirsten Dunst and James Franco as Mary Jane and Harry Osborn play their same old selves, with not much going for them. As seen in the end of Spiderman 2 (2004), Harry has taken up his father's legacy of the Green Goblin, so he has a new dark side to him. However, Franco doesn't pull this off at all. His "dark side" is more a whiny brat not willing to listen to reason about the truth of his father's death, and it got excessively annoying. Kirsten Dunst doesn't bring anything new or special to the character of MJ, and Topher Grace was probably the best actor throughout the entire film, playing Peter's competitor at work, Eddie Brock.
The direction and special effects are really good, to be completely honest. Sam Raimi once again does great behind the camera, and uses his skill to film clean, nice looking action sequences. The special effects in Spiderman 3 are even slightly better than that in the first two films, which is impressive, considering how good those effects were. This may be due to Spiderman 3's bigger budget, but it still is a nice thing to see in an overall boring movie.
The tiring amount of villains is really what hit this film hard. Although the audience may understand the motives and actions of Goblin, Sandman, and Venom, their characters aren't greatly developed. Sandman is just trying to collect money to help his sick daughter, which is nice and all, but his subplot changes a sturdy event that occurred in Spiderman (2002), which was a bad move on the script's part. Venom was quickly shoehorned in during the last act of the film, and his character was overall boring and quite dull. Goblin's motives were easily changeable, which took away from the character a lot.
The script was also pretty bad. The entire film has some awful dialogue, and jumps around often. The abundance of subplots is very bad for the film, and screws it over in unimaginable ways. Many lines were either cheesy, or just horrible, and, without good line delivery from the actors, the script ends up being a convoluted mess, too heavily relying on characters and actors to carry the film, which just didn't happen.
In conclusion, Spiderman 3 isn't completely terrible, it just is an extreme let down from the amazing heights presented in the first two installments. With poor acting, characters, and a bad script, I'd recommend Spiderman 3 to anyone who enjoys superhero (or Marvel) movies, as long as you prepare yourself for a mess before hand.