Good enough... but tangled up too much.

Rating: 7/10 (5 May 2007)

Oh how we love those summer blockbusters... it's true we expect too much from them, especially when they're sequels to really quality films. And it's also true we pounce to criticize them with harsh cruelty when they fail to meet our expectations. 'Spiderman 3' is a perfect summer blockbuster at its own credit. But it has got two wonderful movies as its prequels... so, it faces a tough challenge.
Three villains... one of them my favorite - Venom. Where the movie really fails is its attempts to show the backgrounds of all three of them. OK, the goblin needs no background. But Venom gets the least screen time and I'm not satisfied. A good villain needs time to grow... See, all of the major Spidey villains have their brighter pasts from where they slowly transform to villains. In this film this transformation is hurried and shown abruptly, which quite kills the movie's mood. I believe the film wastes more time on Sandman than it needed.
Another major aspect of the film is Peter Parker's alter ego as the black spiderman after he's infected by the symbiote. I loved the sequence in the jazz club for sure, but I also think the character is shown overtly egomaniacal and unnecessarily irritating. Maguire tries hard to create the contrast between the real Peter and the infected Peter and thus in both cases, he over-acted. Along with his acting, several scenes are also written with excessive emotions and often they are laughable.
But, there are also numerous bright points in the film of course. I just loved the use of humor in this film... especially in scenes involving JK Simmons and Bruce Campbell. And the special visual and sound effects are awesome, you know, as they should be. The fighting sequences, though not very innovative, but always fun to watch. The overall acting is not bad... with James Franco and Topher Grace both stealing the show.
So, to wrap it up, one would definitely enjoy the film. But every time I think about Spidey2, I compare them... and this one somehow loses.