Hyped to hell, this falls way short of the Spider-Man standards set. Still, you'd be hard pressed not to forgive these characters

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2007)

Spider-Man gets all emo and bad ass at the same time with the introduction of "evil black space goo". This time, he must duel with the Sandman, Green Goblin and Venom, as the movie, literally, loses the plot. I could try and explain it to you, but it would make The Big Sleep sound like Snakes On A Plane. The basic thread is Spider-Man discovers his dark side, after being infected with a black substance from outer-space. It causes him to stop combing his hair, do a ridiculous "impression" of John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever and generally act like a horny sixth-former. It also greatly increases his violent tendencies, as he shows no remorse pummelling some of his enemies to their apparent deaths. In the mean time, Mary Jane is failing as an actress, and getting kidnapped every now and again. Her relationship with Peter is once again strained, which has a lot to do with the introduction of Gwen Stacey, another potential love foil.
The first two Spider-Man movies were underwhelming, in terms of spectacle (Spider-Man 2 less so). The CGI had always been ropey, the dialogue reeked of cheese, and much of the action was disappointingly pedestrian. What the series had going for it was its heart and faith in the characters. It was never really about Spider-Man but Peter Parker, who struggled with his identity in the last film, only to come clean to Mary Jane at the end. Spider-Man 3 aspires to the same level of drama, with none of the reward. The plot is completely incomprehensible and having three bad guys wander in and out of the film's narrative only serves to make matters more confusing. Firstly, why do we need the sandman? There is nothing scary about a man who can turn into a beach, whether he is played by Thomas Haden Church or not. Secondly, whenever a character suffers from Amnesia, it is usually a film-making short cut so we can go over ground already trampled upon in the past. And that is exactly what happens here. Thirdly  Venom is played by Topher Grace, the single most annoying actor in the world. If you had ever read the comics or even seen the animated series of Spider-Man, you would know that Venom is meant to be scary as hell. Yet listening to him talk like a racquetball-playing yuppy, albeit occasionally screeching, just made me think what he really needs is a nice cappuccino and a Apple laptop to put his photos on.
The film's saving graces are all down to director Sam Raimi and leading player Tobey Maguire. Raimi has always been good at placing comedy in his films, and there are a couple of really funny moments, involving Bruce Campbell in a hilarious cameo, and JK Simmons doing JJ Jameson, the newspaper editor from hell shtick, he does so well. Also, the action isn't half bad either. There is an absolutely spectacular sequence involving a humongous crane pillaging through the side of a skyscraper, only for Spider to come to the rescue. But at a reported $258 million (that's fifty million than Titanic) it does not justify its price or hype. There are only so many times we can witness Mary Jane get kidnapped before it becomes numbing. Tobey Maguire does his best, as always. And does nothing to disserve the drama of the piece. But considering just how good this could have been, it really wasn't worth the hype.