Good, but still the weakest Spider-man film so far.

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2007)

It becomes pretty obvious why this "Spider-man" film is the weakest of the three when one looks at the plot. After two movies of nothing but bad luck, things are finally going well for Peter Parker. He's loved by all of New York, he's acing his college classes, and he's ready to propose to Mary Jane. In fact, his life is going so well that he doesn't seem to realize that his relationship with Mary Jane is failing. Meanwhile, Harry has finally decided to try to kill Peter to avenge his father's death, but a head injury causes him to lose his memory and basically go back to being the best friend that he used to be to Peter. Meanwhile, an escaped convict named Flint Marko has a bizarre accident and becomes a being made entirely out of sand (naturally called The Sandman). It is also revealed that he was involved in the death of Peter's Uncle Ben, which drives Peter to seek revenge. Peter is also competing for a staff position at the Daily Bugle against a sleazy new photographer named Eddie Brock. While all this is happening, a strange alien substance that crashed to Earth on a meteor has bonded with Peter, which increases his powers and gives him a cool new black suit, but it also turns him into a cocky, angry, arrogant, violent jerk.
Any one of the main story lines could've made a good movie by itself. The problem here is that we get all of this as well as a handful of minor subplots in one movie that still isn't long enough to handle them even at nearly two and a half hours. It doesn't handle any of this stuff particularly badly, but it's still way too much for one movie to handle. The film seems to introduce one subplot, focus on it for awhile, and move on to something else. Some genuinely interesting characters are introduced and quickly disappear until the film is ready to pick up whatever subplot they're involved in.
That's not to say this is a bad movie. There's still a lot to like here despite the obvious flaws. The acting is still on par with what we saw in the first two movies. Tobey Maguire still plays Peter Parker like a geeky yet earnest young man that the audience can't help but like, yet he's giving something new to do here for the first time in this series. The main plot focuses on Peter's dark side as it is brought out by the black alien suit, and the film really has fun with that. There will probably be a lot of complaints about the fact that Peter's transformation is handled with more of a sense of humor than anything, but I for one enjoyed seeing Maguire act like a total jerk. That's really the best way to describe Peter's behavior. He gets angry with people over small things, he starts dating an attractive classmate to make Mary Jane jealous, he orders his coworkers at the Daily Bugle around like he owns the place, and generally behaves with a cockiness and arrogance that we haven't seen from the character before. Like I said, this is usually handled with more of a sense of humor than people might like (there's even a goofy moment where Peter struts down the street like he's John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever"), so I have a feeling the hardcore Spider-man fans who know about this subplot from the comics will be divided. The supporting cast is largely the same as in the first two movies, with J.K. Simmons once again stealing the show as Peter's quick-tempered fast talking boss J. Jonah Jameson. James Franco and Kirsten Dunst once again make up the main supporting cast as Harry and Mary Jane. Franco has probably the most interesting and tragic story arc here, with his character undergoing numerous changes that are all surprisingly believable. On the other hand, Dunst is practically wasted. The relationship between Peter and Mary Jane has always been at the heart of the "Spider-man" movies, but I just didn't care for Mary Jane at all here. She comes off as selfish, petty, and so unlikable that I really didn't care when she was inevitably placed back into the role of damsel in distress. As for the newcomers Thomas Haden Church and Topher Grace, they do a great job as long as they're on screen. Church plays The Sandman as a reluctant and genuinely remorseful villain who almost has a good reason for doing what he does, and Grace manages to make the audience hate Eddie Brock for being such an arrogant prick while still giving him a great story arc that turns him into a real threat to Spider-man. Both of these characters make great villains, and it's a real shame that the film can't go into greater detail with them.
The action and special effects are about what I expected from this kind of movie. They never reach the heights that they did in moments like the great fight on the train in "Spider-man 2," but they still manage to be exciting. The two best moments are clearly the birth of the Sandman (in which Flint Marko slowly pulls himself together after turning into a pile of sand) and the final battle royale where all the major characters fight it out at a construction site. Like I said, there's nothing that tops the train scene from "Spider-man 2," but the film does come close.
Despite it's obvious flaws, this really wasn't a bad movie. It still retains plenty of the charm of the first two "Spider-man" movies, but it just tries to do way too much for one film to handle. I would've rather seen Sam Raimi go the route taken by "Pirates of the Caribbean" and film two much tighter movies instead of one rather sloppy one.