Movie Review: Spiderman 3

*WARNING: This post contains Spoilers.*

I just got home from watching Spiderman 3. I have to admit, I was rather disappointed. When you put all three Spiderman movies together, 3 would be the weakest. I'm not saying that it was a bad movie. In fact, it was rather entertaining but in terms of the overall trilogy (isn't this such a buzz word nowadays?), it just couldn't stand up to the other two films. Since the internet has given every one a chance to speak their mind, here's my two cents worth...

The main thing that bugged me most about Spiderman 3 was the way the whole story played out. It just felt very much like 3 short films about Spiderman spliced together into a single movie (which ran for 2 1/2 hours!). In the first two films, there was an overall story arch that held the films together; Spiderman 1 being about Peter learning to deal with the power he has been given (you know, they whole "With great power comes great responsibility thing); while the 2nd film was about Peter learning to balance his life after accepting his role as Spiderman and not too mention the entire story arch with Doc Octopus. Such an arch was clearly missing in this film.

The opening 30 mins or so of the film felt like we were tying up unfinished story lines left over from Spiderman 2 with the New Goblin sub plot. Then the film continues to drag us through the Sandman/Black Spiderman plot line before finally coming to a slow and tenuous conclusion with the "All-In" fist fight involving not 2, not 3 but 4 superheroes/villians - Sandman and Venom on one side and Spiderman and New Goblin on the other (yes, its not a typo; NEW GOBLIN AND SPIDERMAN).

Character development was really weak as well. We don't really learn anything new about Peter, he's still as indecisive as he was in the first 2 films. How long does it take him to get used to being Spiderman? The there is Sandman, great back story to his character in this film but not used enough to make me feel for him. He was just always in the background and hence, forgettable. It felt like he was there just as a plot device to get Peter to embrace the Black Spidersuit powers. Venom is Venom, awesome but totally underused. He has always been Spiderman's most interesting nemesis (in my humble opinion at least). But to introduce 2 brand new villains to this film and not to mention trying to wrap up the Harry/Peter story line and have Peter fight his own demons was just one villain too many.

In the end, I counted Spiderman fighting 4 different enemies in the whole film. It was just a little too much. I think if they had just focused on a story line using New Goblin/Spiderman/Venom, many of us would have left the theatres feeling a lot better. There was so much that could have been done without need to introduce Sandman. Having said that, Thomas Haden Church did really well in that role. In the film makers defence, once they had decided to attempt such an ambitious story line, they were pretty much locked into it.

I think there is a lot more to come from this franchise, but maybe its time for Sam Raimi to take a short break from it. I just felt that overall, I was being dragged along for the ride rather then sitting back and going with the flow of the story. But what worries me is the fact that they tried to squeeze so much into this film with Venom (who honestly deserves a single film just with him and Spiderman) and company, it might be a sign that there won't be a fourth one. Fingers crossed that's not going to be the case.

So in closing, if I had to rate the film, I'm going to do it in context with the other two films. Hence, Spiderman 1 would get a 8.5/10 (this happens to be my personal favourite), Spiderman 2 would be a 9/10 and finally, Spiderman 3 would come in with a disappointing 5/10.