Not the best of the trilogy, but very strong

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2007)

This movie came out May 2nd, 2007 in China, because of the May Labor Holiday. As I happen to be in China now, I was able to see it a few days early.
Now, I went into this movie with the highest expectations possible. And for most of the picture, I was not disappointed. Unfortunately, being a 21 year old male from the US, I grew up watching the Spider-Man cartoons on fox and reading the comic books of the last ten years or so. Sam Raimi did not. He waxes nostalgic on a whole different era of villains. And it shows.
Basically, I can't complain that they didn't stick to the source. What they did or didn't follow isn't nearly as important in this film as the wasted potential of the characters he chose to use in the film. He chose good characters, made them extremely interesting, and then gave them so little screen time that when the end of the movie came, I couldn't help but feel like despite the length of the film, some of the characters were rushed through the motions of their parts of the plot so quickly that they probably shouldn't have been involved at all.
Sam Raimi said in an interview that one of the producers (or someone up there at Marvel, my memory isn't completely clear) told him that the fans were demanding Venom, and despite his lack of interest in the character, he needed to do the story. Well, what was done was barely a compromise. While the dark side of Peter is apparent from every trailer, they could have done that some other way and not wasted an opportunity with such an interesting villain. But Sam had to have his Sandman, obviously.
Not to say that Thomas Haden Church and Topher Grace aren't high points of the movie. They are. They just don't get to be part of it that much.
Now, to the rest of the movie: It is fabulous, it is great. The acting is great, the special effects are great, the plot is interesting. The special effects are worth the price of admission. Tobey is worth the price of admission. And i think this is Kirsten's best performance yet as Mary Jane.
Unfortunately, it does drag a bit. I didn't mind, but I was in a theatre with 99.5% Chinese people, and conversations could be heard in the crowd at several points where it was just SLOW for an uneccessary amount of time. This is an extreme example, in another country where they don't appreciate melodrama as much, but that was the main problem. Where the first two movies had action, had comedy, had drama, this movie has melodrama. It's just doesn't tug at the heart strings like the previous movies, a lot of the time. The speeches get preachy, the moments of realization too obvious. It's very much like a lot of Raimi's other works I can think of. Which, is not a bad thing, mind you. But where the other two movies were so perfect because they were Spider-Man movies with a touch of the Raimi flavor, this was more a Sam Raimi movie staring Spider-Man.
Now, I can tell you, that's not a bad thing to be. It's just not perfect.