Not without its moments...

Rating: 4/10 (5 May 2007)

Though Spider-man 3 has a handful of moments that are successfully executed, they are far outweighed by scenes that feel more like torture.
I assumed before going into the theater that Bruce Campbell would make his cameo and that I would laugh when I saw it, and probably be the only one who did. I assumed that scenes in the Daily Bugle's main office would make me chuckle. I assumed that Spider-man 3 would improve on its predecessor the way Spider-man 2 improved on the original. My first two assumptions were correct. The last was wrong.
The biggest flaw this movie has - and believe me, it's unignorably huge - is the melodrama. I'm all for drama. I'm all for romance. If you want to infuse these elements into a summer blockbuster superhero comic book flick, by all means, please do. It'd be a nice change of pace. To be nice, I'll say that I've seen less melodrama in certain soap operas than I saw today in Spider-man 3. Some parts were downright laughable. The quivering lips, for example. I thought that Tobey Maguire's lips and Kirsten Dunst's lips were turning into caterpillars, were, in fact, going to crawl straight off their faces.
There are also a few parts that just don't make sense. To avoid spoiling the movie for anybody (as if it needs any help), I'll say that a particular character is present while an explosion with flames at LEAST fifteen from the blast point goes off less than a foot from said character's head. The character survives. About a third of his face has some mild scarring.
The character development is top-notch for our tarantulan hero, as well as for Mary Jane and Harry. The two villains introduced here must split their screen time and so get less development. I didn't really understand Venom's plight, but was forced to accept it anyway. If he were a real human being (and I accept that he's not), he would have seen that HE was the one in the wrong and moved on with life.
The special effects are great for the most part. The sandman, on the small scale, is nothing short of amazing. As an eight-foot-tall monster, he reminds me of The Mummy Returns, with The Rock's face and body wrapped about a digital scorpion.
The end result is a $250 million movie that would probably have been better suited for a straight-to-DVD release. Don't waste your time seeing this in theaters unless you'll enjoy watching a superhero version of Titanic - poor, flat acting; mostly good eye candy; bad pacing; and a truly laughable attempt at tugging at the audience's heartstrings.