An early contender for this summer's best blockbuster.

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 2007)

When you venture out to see a movie in the theatre, you hope to be engaged and have your appetite for entertainment met. You congregate with fellow audience members in the darkness and ideally will leave with a satisfied feeling that only a very good movie can give. The third installment of the Spider-Man franchise did just that for me. The film swung into theatres on May 4th and has broken box office records, making $59.3 million it's opening day alone! SPIDER-MAN 3 is something of a marvel, forcefully shaking off the "sequel law" which dictates that each sequel must inevitably get worse and worse, declining in quality and really being just a cheap facsimile of the sharp original movie. The Spiderman trilogy proves once again (i.e. the Indiana Jones trilogy) that the sequel rule can be broken on rare occasion. In case you have not caught the first two Spider-Man films or need some refreshment on the plot, the starting of this film brings you from the beginning of the first Spider-Man right to where the last one left off with a cool montage of clips placed in the opening credits. Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) are getting serious in their relationship. But while Spider-Man's popularity in the city is at an all time high, Mary Jane has been let go from her Broadway debut after just one critically bashed performance. Peter is so engrossed in the people's adulation of his alter ego Spider-Man and fails to be a shoulder for MJ to lean on. Peter's former friend, the wealthy Harry Osborn (James Franco), is plotting his revenge for the death of his father who he believes died at the hands of Spider-Man. Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) is an escaped convict who falls into a particle accelerator while on the run, transforming him into a shape shifting sand-man. He wreaks havoc on the city, robbing banks and armored vehicles. At the Daily Bugle where Peter works we have Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), a hotshot freelance photographer who has just been hired. In competing with Peter for the best photos of Spider-Man he cheats by Photoshopping Spidey into a bank break-in. Yet still, there are more problems for Spidey: one night black alien liquid oozes from a crashed meteorite, and attaches itself to Peter while he sleeps. This gooey creature uses him as a host, making him aggressive and causing a downward spiral into arrogance and selfish behavior. As Spider-Man/Peter Parker confronts the darkness in himself, he must overcome the need for revenge which has consumed him after some recent disturbing facts have come to light. I will not give anything away, but those twists affect core plot points as far back as the first Spider-Man movie! Writer/director Sam Raimi weaves it all into a cohesive and entertaining 2 hours and 20 minutes. There could be a lot of conflict in such a loaded storyline, but it is handled deftly by Sam Raimi, and he leaves you at the end wanting more. He makes us feel empathy for the Sandman who is out getting money for his sick daughter, and Harry who lost his father. The first Spider-Man was extremely "comic-book", really just a visual thrill ride, while the second one made an effort at having deeper character development in its villains and good guys. The third one leaps astronomically far ahead of the previous two on all levels, making it a strong early contender for the summer's best blockbuster. There is a brief cameo by the co-creator of Spider-man Stan Lee as well, midway through the movie, so watch for that. This movie is the most expensive film ever made in history, costing $258 million dollars! So watch a rare product in today's Hollywood: an enormously budgeted movie that has thrilling special effects paired with a compelling and thought provoking storyline.