After the Rental: Spider-Man 3

While the first two films in the series were good (the first bordered on great), this one seemed to suffer from a director, Sam Raimi, who knew this was his last film in the series and the last for the cast in the series. What does a guy in that position do? Get every last thing possible squeezed into the film.

Bad idea.

What a total, absolute, mess. This film challenges The Big Sleep for convoluted plot and has so many characters crammed into it that it makes the Edens Expressway feel empty.

The need for Venom in the film escapes me. Couldn’t Venom have infected Spider-Man and kept infecting him all through the film to make a bridge to Spider-Man 4? That would have eliminated 2 characters (Venom and Eddie Brock) and tightened up the plot quite a bit. And the idea to have him team up with Sandman at the end to defeat Spider-Man? So cliché. Oh, and haven't we seen the Sandman before? He looked just like the CGI Arnold Vosloo in "The Mummy." (Maybe Patricia Velasquez would have perked this film up)

Then, they add Gwen Stacy to make a love triangle for Peter/Spider-Man and Mary Jane (is that a love square). But, there’s already a love triangle, make that a pentagon, with Peter/Spider-Man, Mary Jane, and Harry Osborne/New Green Goblin. Was Gwen really necessary? Nope.

Tobey McGuire spends enough time crying for this film to have a slot booked for it on Lifetime. Was Kristen Dunst talking about Mary Jane or herself when she said she “wasn’t very good” as an actress?

What made the first two films so good were the quiet moments where you felt that there were real people behind the comic book situations. That’s part of what made Batman Begins so good. In this film, Sam Raimi tried to do that and failed. What we got were forced scenes with Aunt May walking in to Peter’s apartment, saying a few more “I believe” lines, and walking out. And Mary Jane and Harry dumping omelets on the floor.

The best parts? J. Jonah Jameson’s scene with the conference buzzer and his pills, and the Sam Raimi obligatory Bruce Campbell cameo. Oui!

Ivy Chat rating: Out in a rundown between first and second while going for a triple.