We've all done terrible things to each other, but we have to forgive each other.

Rating: 4/10 (9 May 2007)

This movie had the potential to be the best spider-man movie ever, but instead it turned out bad. However I don't think its down to just the story, on paper it looks good at least a 2 hour 20 minute movie about spider-man with 3 villains (Sandman, New Goblin and Venom) with Peter and MJ together and getting married...on paper at least it looks good.
So why did it go wrong? The film starts off really well and picks up from where number 2 left off really nicely, personally I was never a fan of Spiderman 2 because to me it wasn't as good as the original, but this one had more to give, still back to the beginning...it starts off and reminds us of the old characters who we loved, Peter is still the web-slinger and hes top of his class and still takes pictures, MJ's acting career is on a high as shes got a main part. This is all good and for the first 10 minutes it makes you remember this is a spider-man film.
Then we see sandman's character (I was so uninterested I didn't catch his real name - though I believe it should be William Baker) still we get to see this new villain...then after we get a really cool action scene, at this point you start to think this is now a spider-man movie, as all the special effects come out and your sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for something to happen and wanting to know what happens next, but not much really does, during this scene we see some new character called Gwen Stacy who is a model, and we also see Eddie Brock...it then goes to a scene of J. Jonah Jameson in his office (at this point there are a few laughs but the joke wears thin after a while).
During this time we see Peter and Brock have some tension and they start to hate each other. Sadly however this is the point when the film starts to get down hill, as Sandman then becomes Sandman, and Peter and MJ break up....Peter is so full of himself about being spider-man that hes kind of lost how to talk to MJ but he wants to marry her so it's all good, however they have a fight in the restaurant where Peter plans to ask MJ the question. Suddernly the film turns from being a fairly solid film to a chick flick which is all about Peter and MJ trying to get back together.
I wont bore you with the rest of the film because to be honest the rest of it is fairly rubbish, Harry has a memory lose due to a fight with spider-man, Peter gets "darker" due to the black suit and becomes a massive flirt...and shows off in front of MJ and suddenly turns Emo. MJ does the typical girl thing and falls in love with Harry again and still loves Peter...in other words she turns out to be the village bike.
Also like has already been stated Venom is hardly in it, and the ending is predictable, I'm not too bothered about the Venom stuff because it was obvious that was a bad move.
But like I said to start with the story didn't kill it, I mean certain parts did but not all. In some ways I think the directing killed this movie.
The length when I read it on IMDb before seeing it did surprise me 2 hours 20 minutes isn't a long time, but Casino Royale was that long and so was Blood Diamond both are excellent films they have a good solid story and they have a lot of action, while keeping you entertained. Upon watching those movies though I think Sam didn't move with the times both of them movies the directing during the action scenes kept you in the movie where as spider-man 3 was more like watching the matrix reloaded the special effects for me where too over used and the camera seemed to be in the same position it was almost like it was shoot using a high digital camera on a mobile phone.
This film (the last film I saw at the cinema before this was Casino Royale which I thought was excellent) was meant to be every single spider-man fans dream and every non spider-man fans film of the year, but instead it just didn't feel modern, you left the cinema thinking "what was that?" in shock that it wasn't what you had hoped, it was meant to be Batman Begins in terms of how dark it was but it wasn't dark at all.
I would say that this film is a typical case of gone too far, the humour and the effects where just too much for it and the story was trying to be too much to so many people. But it done what it set out to do, look around you there's spider-man everywhere at the moment its advertised so much, the media got us to go and see it, where as we all fail to see that the movie is not what we hoped.