What a mess.

Rating: 3/10 (8 May 2007)

So, amongst some of their great cinematic effects in which they spent millions upon millions, the producers seem to have forgotten to hire a director and actors or even bought a script. This is just a B movie with an extremely high budget, which left me very disappointed after watching it.
Although most of the action sequences can be enticing, the time spent waiting for them to happen is when you can see the rest of the audience checking their cellphones or doing their nails. All of the lead cast seem unable to act their way out of a paper bag and the script isn't helping them any. You can't go one minute in this movie without something horribly corny being said, a hole in the plot, or a complete waste of screen time on something completely irrelevant.
Tobey Macguire leaves much to be desired with his constant Keanu Reeves impressions and self-consciousness, whilst Kirsten Dunst and James Franco seem to do nothing but glaze over their lines without any emotion. Meanwhile Topher Grace was simply a bad choice for Venom, who - despite being Spider-Man's number one nemesis - comes off as a puppy dog. Thomas Haden Church's performance is admirable, though once again, he's another actor bogged down by the script. The only really good performances that rise above the script are that of J.K. Simmons and Elya Baskin who of course have tiny comedic roles, yet somehow became a cut above the rest of the more experienced actors. And apparently they just let the extras do whatever they wanted, because in every scene they stand around like idiots and fail to give any reality to their setting. If someone shoots a gun ten feet away - you would RUN.
As for the visuals, although breathtaking at times, even some of them leave the audience wondering how the production company expected people to take it as truth. One of the visuals reminded me of a low budget B movie made in the mid-90s with its bad computer graphics.
However, I do have to applaud the music. Although I swear one of the pieces is stolen from The Hulk movie (which, by the way, was far better than this garbage), every piece of the score is accurately put to the story and is very nice to listen to.
Rent this movie only if you're a Spider-Man freak, or just interested in being entertained for the ten minutes of great visuals. I'm still at a loss as to how the first two movies in this trilogy could be fairly good, and this one (with the same actors and director) completely bombs.