The "Batman Forever" of the Spider-Man series...or, in other words: the most disastrous disappointment in quite a while

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2007)

Don't believe the hype - seldom has this saying been so true when looking at Spider-Man 3. Even I as a non-comic-book-fan enjoyed Spider-Man 1 & 2 and was looking forward to this one, but looks like Sam Raimi fooled us all...
For no apparent reason, director Sam Raimi overstuffed this installment of Spider-Man to an extent that one could think he cut two different films together, even though things start well enough with Peter Parker's life appearing to be just perfect as the beloved hero of NYC and with his love to MJ prospering.
However, once a comet carrying the much talked about symbiote conveniently lands on earth directly next to MJ and Peter in the park without the two even noticing, this movie turns into an unforgivable mess packed with half-hearted sub-stories and useless new characters. For example, shortly after the symbiote managed to make its way to Peter's apartment, we suddenly find out that the police finally found the supposed true murderer of Pete's uncle Ben in a tragic criminal named Flint Marko, who is committing crimes for the sake of his sick daughter. This Flint Marko, however, while being chased by police officers, "conveniently" stumbles over a testing ground for a particle accelerator, which transforms him into the Sandman, a terrifying and seemingly invincible new villain for Spidey to fight. And then there is Harry Osborn, Peter's former best friend who found out about Peter's alter ego and now blames him for the death of his father (as seen in part 1), seeking revenge by going the way of his father and hunting Spidey as the New Goblin. Oh, and then there is a new rival for Peter at the Daily Bugle named Eddie Brock, using dirty tricks in order to outclass Peter, with his girlfriend Gwen Stacey flirting with both Peter Parker and Spider-Man and making Mary Jane and Eddie jealous in the process...and last but not least, the symbiote itself seems to be a far greater threat to Pete than he could have possibly imagined, personified by...I think you can guess who is going to be affected by the symbiote apart from Spidey and will represent his completely dark side...
See what I mean? All these plot lines have been cramped into roughly two hours of screen time, and I did not even mention the useless bits showing Peter Parker as a mean a-hole due to the symbiote's influence that seem more ridiculous than anything else. But especially the last act of the movie, or roughly the last 30 minutes, seem so tacked-on and incoherent that one might assume that this part of the film was not even planned to be there to begin with, and it only drags the entire story down. Due to this overflow of plot lines, it is clear that the movie cannot do justice to each of them, hence the story as a whole seems half hearted and literally crumbles under the weight of so many characters and sub-stories as well as nonsensical and gaping plot-holes (like the sudden appearance of the symbiote or the creation of Sandman), with the last twenty minutes being reason enough for comic book fans to curse Sam Raimi, since not even the actors manage to save the story. Tobey Maguire remains shockingly stale and wooden as Peter Parker, and specifically his performance during the love scenes come off as unintentionally funny. I still can't understand what happened to Tobey, since he really did a great job in the first two, and I thought he would have grown even more into the role. Kirsten Dunst as MJ seems to be complete out of place in this movie, and even James Franco as Harry Osborn has a few embarrassing moments. Thomas Haden Church on the other hand plays the part of the tragic villain Flint Marko rather nicely, while Topher Grace as Eddie Brock rivals the wooden performance by Maguire. I guess part of the problem are the horrible dialogue lines (even for a comic book movie), and even the way George Lucas is writing his love scenes (I am a Lucas supporter, though) is infinitely superior to the tedious and painful exchanges between Dunst and Maguire. At least J.K. Simmons as Jonah Jameson as well as Bruce Campbell in a hilarious cameo as a French waiter manage to save the cast from being a complete disappointment.
The only saving grace of the movie, though, are its breathtaking action sequences - apart from the final confrontation, that is, which lacks any excitement whatsoever and comes off as a pale rehash of the first two. Not even the visual effects are perfect, in fact, they are even less believable than in the previous two, with some scenes making it painfully obvious that a lot has been done via CGI in some inappropriate places...John Dykstra's absence from Spider-Man 3 is rather apparent in that regard, unfortunately, even though the effects in general are still quite nice to look at (especially Sandman is a well done CG character, while not on par with General Grievous or Gollum), just not on the same level as Lord of the Rings or the Star Wars prequels.
In the end, Spider-Man 3 is a towering disappointment, a movie that does not live up to the enormous hype in the least bit and lacks all the strengths of its predecessors, and I am still at a loss of words - how could this have possibly gone so terribly wrong? What on earth was Sam Raimi, normally a great director, thinking? What happened to the usually solid cast? And why does the plot have to be too ambitious for its own good? It really is sad to see the Spider-Man going the way of the Batman franchise in the 90s - in fact, this IS the Batman Forever of the Spider-Man series. I for my part doubt that a fourth part could bring the series back on track.