This is partially a rebuttal of Chris’ Spiderman 3 Review so you may want to read that. First let me spare you your $10 and your time reading the rest of this:
Spiderman 3 is a mediocre film with a disappointing ending; it does too little with too much.
Chris liked the film a lot more than I did. I saw all 3 Spiderman movies on opening night, I love the first two and have watched my DVDs of them many times. The action was good overall, but I must complain about the subway fight with Sandman; the part where they fall down through endless depths of running subway trains. I know its NYC, but that was straight of of a comic book. Ok, ok, that is probably what they were going for, given this is a comic book movie, but the rest of it is set so matter of factly in an almost real world (save the random super powers), it felt out of place.
Let me address my second issue with Spiderman 3, “it does too little with too much.” Spiderman 2 had one villain, which was plenty. We got lots of good back story on him. Spiderman 2 also had a lot of plot, the back and forth between Parker and Mary Jane and Harry, it seemed like we never got to the action. That was fine by me, sure the action is amazing but all that plot really got me into the world, and well I’m a sucker for a predictable love story, especially if done well.
Spiderman 3 used roughly the same love story as 2, except, first, it had to break up the lovers before it could reunite them. This time, however, the love story was given only lip service, no depth, just a device for the plot, not the point of it all. The love story was not the only part to be short changed, the development of Sandman was all of 5 minutes on screen. Never did they describe what was being done with whatever made him the Sandman. They could have made a nice connection back to that competing company that bought Oscorp in the first movie. Venom’s back story was adequate, but could have been more flushed out. Venom should have been the only villain in this one, hes villainous enough. They could have continued to build up the Harry, Parker fervor, and spent the 4th installment entirely on that, or on that + Sandman. I guess what I’m saying is that in the end it was all too nice and tidy. Also, things got really cheesy getting there, forget the “wonder years” in the jazz club, how about the cheesy cliches in the ending battle sequence.
Overall I felt the movie was fun, but its in a different league than the previous two movies. It is not a must own, its like the odd numbered Star Trek Films, you want to own it, to own all of them, but you realize you’re never going to want to watch it. If they are going to make 3 more films, I really wish they would have taken the hard road, and kept the bigger longer story arch, rather than fixing it all with a bump on the head and a butler giving advice. If they aren’t going to make 3 more, you’re going to end it with a bump on the head and….!