Good but not Great

Rating: 8/10 (6 May 2007)

Spider-Man is the highest grossing comic-book-to-movie franchise in history, so we all knew it was inevitable that we were going to see sequel after sequel. After I saw the third installment, a friend of mine told me that a Spider-Man 4, 5, and 6 were being planned. And then I realized...this series is only getting dragged out for money. The story took a backseat.
Spider-Man 3 is a fairly good movie, don't get me wrong, but there is nothing new or ridiculously exciting here. I feel like I've seen all of the dude's moves and I've seen the action sequences before. The cinematography is good but not any different than the other movies and none of the scenes really jumped out. It just didn't cut it for me.
Anyways, Peter Parker is back as Spider-Man, and we see that his life is back on track. He's in school, he saves people, and he's dating that "what's her name" chick. Life is good. But a movie would suck if nothing happens, so sh*t happens here. Now we have three bad guys going after him: Harry Osbourne as the Goblin dude, the Sandman, and Venom. You would think that all these villains makes the movie more interesting, but all it does is make it into a bigger mess. Too many plots are going on and the movie is just too long. It's funny because during the movie (about 2 hours in), I'm thinking "God, wrap it up already!" When I went to Grindhouse and it finished (after about 3 hrs. 40 minutes), I'm thinking "God, why wasn't it longer?" Spider-Man 3 just didn't hold my full interest.
Plot aside, the action sequences are very good. Some of them look like graphics from a video game, and some look fantastic. They are exciting but like I said before, nothing really different when being compared to the other Spider-Man movies. One thing that I really hated about this movie was the cheesy dialogue. I mean, some scenes were very bad. You had to go to "The School of Screenwriters and Cheese" to write some of these lines. But that's the thing with most superhero movies, so just enjoy it for what it is.
In my opinion, I really think Spider-Man 2 was a better movie. It was more organized and more interesting. Nevertheless, this movie will not disappoint fans of the series and it definitely won't disappoint at the box office. I recommend this movie and I also recommend showing up early (it will be PACKED....GUARANTEED).
7.5 out of 10 (I put 8 because I felt generous and rounded up).