Review of Spider-Man 3 (2007) by David W — 17 Jan 2016

Spoilers.

Spider-Man 3 is one of the most superhero movies ever. Lots of people hate this movie, however now it seems to be more liked after amazing Spider-Man 2. For me I think Spider-Man 3 is a decent film that's a fairly mixed bag yet isn't as bad as people say. I think Tobey Maguire is still really good in this movie, true his character becomes very unlikeable but Tobey still does a good job. Kirsten Dunst is good yet I hate Mary Jane in this movie, she doesn't tell Peter that she got kicked out of the play and then gets angry at him for being so happy. James Franco is good as Harry, yet his character is terribly handled, he starts out as a main villain then he gets amnesia so that Sandman can come in and then when Sandman gets 'killed' Harry conveniently gets his memory back, then he just kind of walks around smiling and taking Mary Jane from Peter, then he helps Peter in the final fight and gets killed. Thomas Haden Church is a really good actor and he's good as Sandman but his villain is an idiot, when Peter thinks he's killed sandman, sandman then reforms and goes back to robbing banks instead of laying low. There also way too many shots of Sandman looking at his locker to make him seem like an emotional character but it doesn't really work. In all fairness I think sandman should have been taken out of the movie as he adds very little and didn't really need to be here. Topher Grace as Venom is yet again badly developed, Eddie Brock is hardly in it, then he becomes Venom and while he looks cool he has terrible motivation, then he fights Spider-Man and gets killed. All the villains are handled terribly, good performances don't make good villains. The supporting actors I feel are wasted, J.K. Simmons isn't as funny as the other two, the actors who play Aunt May, Uncle Ben, Captain Stacy and Bryce Dallas Howard are all wasted. I don't think Sam Rami did as good of a job directing this film as the other two, that's probably due to him and the studio arguing and constantly disagreeing. The writing is the worst part of this film, this is a fairly fun movie but the script just stops this movie being great, the problem is this film has too much in it, you can't do a movie about black suit Spider-Man and have Harry as a villain and have sandman and say that he killed uncle Ben (a stupid decision by the way) and have Peter and MJ break up and introduce Gwen Stacy, Venom and loads of other characters. This film really needed to be two movies, there's just way too much for one movie. The action here is really good which keeps this film very entertaining. I love the Harry vs Peter fight scenes and the Sandman vs black suit Spider-Man fight. The end fight scene is also great but I didn't really care who won as all of the characters are very unlikeable. The music is also great, it's still great hearing the theme and it's one of the things that's great in all 3 movies. This film also has great cinematography, the web slinging scenes are the best of the three films and the cgi looks amazing as well. However while this is a fun and visually brilliant movie this movie is extremely flawed. This film has lots of plot holes, like why when Harry forces MJ to break up with Peter why does she go along with it instead of telling Peter that Harry is evil. Harry and Venom are terribly handled, how does Harry survive falling from really high into the ground. The biggest problem is the handling of evil Peter, I don't read comics but I've heard that Peter actually turned bad and didn't turn into an emo, start dancing, using women, acting like a dick and eat milk and cookies. Evil Peter is absolutely hillarious here. The dance scene in the restaurant is awful, it doesn't fit with the movie, Tobey Maguire looks like an idiot and it just doesn't work. It's really sad this is the last of the Spider-Man trilogy because the other two were really good. While this film is very entertaining and better than the amazing Spider-Man movies this is still a really flawed movie and a bad movie. The film is bad but I do enjoy it. B-.