Spider-Man 3

It may be a well kept secret that I did not particularly enjoy Spider-Man 3 the first time around. A well kept secret because when I mentioned it to Cale, I was met with nothing but hostility. I can't really blame him though; I loved the first two Spider-Man movies, even wanting to give the first one 11 out of 10, if it were numerically possible. Indeed, the excitement leading up to the first film has never been matched, and the continued excitement throughout the film cemented the fact that this was a phenomenal ride. Of course, it helps that I've always been a big Spidey fan, collecting hundreds of comic books throughout the years. Of course, everybody is excited over these movies, as evidenced by the huge box-office they generate.

So what happened to number 3 that I didn't enjoy? Generally, I feel as though they tried to cram too much into the film, and because of that, it lost focus. The first one was an origin story and was very tight; the second one was about Peter Parker and of course Doc Ock, and was very focused: it knew where it was going. The third on had multiple enemies, personal problems galore and quite simply, too many big name characters being reduced to bit parts.

The Sandman was phenomenal. The way he looked, the way he acted, his motivations: everything was great. Venom was a bit of a mixed bag. While we all would have enjoyed seeing more of him throughout the film, I can understand why he was reduced to being only in the last act. And of course the "new" Green Goblin was handled...alright, I guess. James Franco did a great job screwing with Peter and that was just brilliant, but his quick decision to help him out at the end all thanks to his butler giving out an incredibly valuable piece of information at the last second...well that was just terrible. Why would this guy hold onto this information for two years? He knows exactly what's going on, lets Harry go crazy then decides to just tell him randomly. It was disgusting, but not everything can fit together so nicely, I guess.

Watching the film a second time around has given me some more appreciation for the film and many of the annoying parts were more enjoyable. Overall I would say it was a solid film, with some great action sequences and lots of heroics, with the only issue being a convoluted plot that started bursting at the seams near the end. It's not a clean film like the others.

Are we getting a Spider-Man 4? If we do I certainly hope that it's a different team: Raimi has done everything he needs to do, and I would like to see the franchise being tackled by other creative minds. I don't want to see another three-part story: movies that can stand on their own and have slight continuity would be fine (perhaps MJ should die and Gwen Stacy can take over, they certainly had much better on-screen chemistry). Let's keep the enemies going strong: Sandman was portrayed so wonderfully, you can believe the guy is human and just so happens to be made of sand. Spider-Man stories have always been character-driven and only suffer when things are rushed.