Another step down, but not a complete failure

Rating: 6/10 (23 February 2015)

"Spider-Man 3" is the final installment from Sam Raimi's trilogy on everybody's favorite spider. In contrast to films 1 and 2, it did not achieve any Academy Award nominations (let alone wins), but ended up as the most successful film from 2007 in terms of box office. 3 years earlier, only the second "Shrek" movie was seen more often than "Spider-Man 2", but in 2007 "Spider-Man 3" beat "Shrek 3". Unfortunately, this does not mean that it is as good as the second film. It's slightly worse and way worse than the first in my opinion. I would not go so far and say that this was due to Raimi being involved with writing for the first time too here, but it had more to do with the fact that 4 superheroes/villains are just too many for one movie. The previous 2 films worked so well because it was this 1 vs 1 mentality that shone both times. Part 3 is also the longest film so far and they certainly could have cut it down a bit, for example why include Harry's amnesia early on if he turns out the way he ended up in film 2 anyway. A bit of a pointless inclusion.
Talking about Harry, this is almost more of a Green Goblin film than a Spider-Man movie. James Franco became more and more popular than Maguire, so he got most of the interesting scenes here and easily much more character development. Also he ends up saving Spidey's life more than once and it is very telling that the franchise pretty much ended with his death. Back to the villains here, they are just both fairly forgettable. While I liked the way that Venom was animated, they simply could have done so much more with the character, but definitely came short here. Also, Topher Grace's character is the only antagonist from the trilogy, who has no real "justifiable" events happening that make him turn evil. James Cromwell plays a nothing character and even Rosemary Harris has no material that she can shine with just like in the last two films. It's fairly ridiculous how Parker always reveals himself as Spider-Man in situations where everybody could actually see him, like early on during that date with Mary Jane. Talking about Mary Jane, she needs to be rescued once again at the end. Getting a bit old by now. Another criticism would be that it is just too much of a coincidence that it's exactly the guy who shot Ben who turns into a sand mutant.
Well.. these were quite some negative points, but here and there, the film also had a couple strong moments. It's a movie about fatherhood, friendship, betrayal and forgiveness. If you liked films 1 and 2, you should still give this one a go and be it only for reasons of closure. Recommended.