Tremendously disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (8 May 2007)

Before I get into how much of a letdown Spider Man 3 is, let's talk about the first two. Spider Man was a light, entertaining action film with likable characters that were fairly well developed. It was very well made, and though it had fantasy elements, it stayed grounded in reality. Spider Man 2 was even better. The characters were more fleshed out, the special effects and action scenes improved, and the writing was tremendous (probably thanks to Michael Chabon).
Then along came Spider Man 3 (no pun intended). This was the movie that I was most looking forward to this summer, and it was a huge letdown. There are numerous problems with the film: 1) Too many villains. While I'm sure many comic book fans (I'm not one of them) were enthused about the New Goblin, Venom, and Sandman being in the third film, it's just too much.
2) Too much fantasy. Like I mentioned before, the first two films had fantasy elements, but remained grounded in reality. But when Sandman becomes this enormous mass of sand (with tires and other debris thrown in) it just crosses the line and is, again, too much. In fact, too much could sum up the whole movie. It tries for so much and utterly fails.
3) Ridiculous plot elements. So a meteorite crashes, out comes this black goo, it latches onto Peter, and it makes him emo. Meteorite goo makes him emo. Does that make sense to anyone? 4) Lack of character development. Too much action (there we go again with "too much") and not enough character elements. Aunt May seemed to have a smaller part than usual, and the attempts by the writers to flesh out the new characters (like Sandman) just fall flat.
5) Plot holes. Why did the butler keep his mouth shut for so long? Why did Peter want Gwen to kiss him, when it is obvious it would make MJ jealous? Why didn't MJ tell Peter about the play? 6) It's not even fun to watch. The action gets tiring, and all the joy is sucked out.
Go see the movie as a continuation of the series, but go in with low expectations. If you're expecting a film on the level of Spider Man 2, you're going to be let down.
P.S. Bruce Campbell is the best thing about this film.