Good, but not spider-man good

Rating: 8/10 (21 May 2007)

Spiderman was a good film. Spider-man 2 was an excellent one. It was its mix of action, romance and subtle character development that made it, in my opinion, one of the all time greatest movies. So you can understand how much I was looking forwards to Spider-man 3. And as good as it is, I was still disappointed.
The film is too disjointed. For example there are far too many identical scenes where M.J. walks into Peter's apartment, tries to open up to him, he pushes her away and she leaves. This happens about three times in the film, when twice or even once would have sufficed.
There are also some silly plot points, such as Harry loosing his memory in the first half of the film. This is obviously Sam Raimi realising that he jumped the gun, revealing peters identity to Harry in the second film.
There are three villains this time. Harry Osborne and The Sandman are both excellent, easily better than the first film's Green Goblin, and almost rivalling the second film's Doc Oc. Unfortunately Venom is not so well done. Topher Grace plays him competently enough, and the character works well as the dorky, pathetic, slightly perverted Eddie Brock. However when he gets hold of Peter's symbiote suit, his character doesn't develop at all. He's still the same old Eddie just in a black suit. "My spidey sense is tingling, if you know what I mean!" he giggles at one point. He seems more like the typical sex obsessed teen from one of those naff high school movies, than a superhero's arch nemesis.
The action scenes are all very enjoyable, even if a few of the ones with The Sandman are a little too short. However the massive 4-way battle at the end more than makes up for this.
But as enjoyable as Spider-man 3 is, it's too messy to be considered a classic like the first two. Keeping in mind that the third part of a superhero movie franchise is traditionally disappointing- Superman 3, X-men the last stand, Batman Forever, Blade Trinity- compared to these films, Spider-man 3 is a masterpiece.