Spider-Man 3

A mysterious black goo from outer freakin' not of this Earth arrives to infect Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), turning him into the polar opposite of Spider Man (called Venom, and deserving of it's own film as a singular Spidey villain, if you ask me) just in time to coincide with; 1) Romantic complications with MJ (Kirsten Dunst) whose stage career is barely treading water and who is growing frustrated with Pete's notoriety as a superhero and the attention he receives from a pretty lab partner (Bryce Dallas Howard) Peter has apparently failed to tell her about, 2) A brash, annoying rival (Topher Grace, having fun in full-on smarm mode) who aims to steal Peter's job at the Daily Bugle (guess who Venom decides to infect next?), and 3) The revelation that the man who killed Peter's uncle (Cliff Robertson) had an accomplice, one Flint Marko (The suitably rubbery-looking Thomas Haden-Church) who isn't your average remorseless bad guy killer, and who has escaped prison only to end up in a major radiation accident that turns him into the seemingly indestructible Sandman. Have you got all that? Well, add the still-harbouring-a-grudge Harry Osborn (James Franco), who is continuing his mission to kill Spiderman, blaming him for the death of his loony father AKA The Green Goblin. Poor Harry ends up injured and an amnesiac, which is a jolly convenient thing since he had just learned…well, hell, I'm getting tired typing all this nonsense. Just read the critique below and see the damn film yourself if you must. James Cromwell is Howard's police chief dad, tracking down Marko, J.K. Simmons is back as blustery editor J.J. Jameson (with Ted Raimi as his flunky), and of course, decrepit old Rosemary Harris plays Peter's Yoda…er…Aunt yet again.

Even Spidey fans didn't quite embrace this bloated, wrong-headed, majorly contrived, seriously redundant (a lot of the same issues keep popping up, and the story isn't furthered much, if at all), and quite frankly boring 2007 Sam Raimi film. There are way too many characters here (including three villains), many of whom are just reprisals of earlier characters (Whilst nailing the sympathetic aspect of his character, Haden-Church's Sandman is essentially playing the same tune that Alfred Molina's Doc Ock played previously, and unfortunately, unlike Doc Ock, The Sandman disappears for long stretches of the film, barely given any depth. His FX are also somewhat uneven). Franco's Harry, despite the actor giving his best performance in the series really got on my nerves. The amnesia subplot might have taken his character (and the actor) into a new direction, but it's a temporary thing (get ready to throw stuff at the screen when Harry's butler gives him some oh-so frigging late information, that may have been an homage to "Citizen Kane" - you'll understand when you see it if you know that film intimately- but probably not), and he's soon back to playing out a storyline that really ought to have been finished in one of the previous films. His would-be villain is the one truly expendable one, with Grace giving the film's best performance (hearing his puny voice as the Venom character is a bit tough to take, but the rest of the time the actor, who looks interestingly similar to Maguire, is very well-cast), and Haden-Church's character might have benefited from the greater screen time allotted to him with Franco's absence.

Howard's third-rate Lana Lang (lets face it, that's what her character really is), meanwhile, is just a plot point- y'know, kinda like Lana Lang (no, not the TV one, but the one played by the chick who plays Superman's mother on TV) was in that other horrible third instalment of a superhero series, "Superman III" . There's no point in bringing in a new character to be a credible love interest for Peter, because…well, she can't be. So her use as a distraction and plot point is completely obvious from her first scene (which is pretty much one of her only scenes anyway!).

Then you have a wasted James Cromwell, Theresa Russell (is this the first film she's been in with no sex in it?) and Dylan Baker in roles that presumably found more of a home on the cutting room floor, unnecessary cameos by dead characters (Willem Dafoe doing the shame shtick he did last time, ditto Cliff Robertson), and the two most annoying mainstays of the series- whistling-voiced old fart Harris (who has become more of a friggin' fortune cookie than Yoda ever was. At least Yoda could open up a can of whupass on Christopher Lee! And did Harris say 'Forgive Your Shelf?' That's what it sounded like to me, anyway, with her geriatric whistling voice) and seriously overrated Simmons. The latter's big scene is a horribly executed bit of slapstickery (my word, I've copyrighted it) that stops the film dead, when it was pretty much stillborn to begin with.

So with all this sh*t going on, well…it takes a helluva long time for Raimi to get to…y'know, the part where…um…all the, like, stuff happens. It never gets out of the starting blocks because it has to set so damn much up with all these characters. Maguire is still perfectly fine as Peter Parker, even if I reckon he's always been too small-framed to play Spidey. Dunst is as awful (and heroin junkie-looking, or at least anorexic/anaemic-looking) as she always has been (except for "Interview With a Vampire" ), but apparently I'm alone on that one. I did like their spider-web make-out session, though, it's far more appealing than that creepy-looking upside down thing they did previously (which is amusingly parodied here).

You really know you're in trouble when the best moments come from Topher Friggin' Grace (Venom is the film's one good, somewhat original idea, though it takes a long time for Grace to get involved in this part of the film), a cool opening credits design, and a Basil Fawlty-inspired cameo by Raimi's buddy Bruce Campbell (With Campbell's appalling attempt at a French accent, I half expected Terry Jones to turn up as Mr. Creosote).

With all the above criticisms, it's funny that with just the removal of the Harry subplot, and a little beefing up of the Sandman, this film would've been significantly improved (Hell, the finale sure has it's moments, visually at least. I loved the taxi held by a giant web and seeing Grace and Maguire facing off in a Super Geek Smackdown was amusing, if not credible). It'd still star Kirsten Dunst, though.