Spider-man 3 was the worst comic book movie I’ve ever seen. (Yes, I’ve seen Elektra and Daredevil, not to mention Ghost Rider.) In the interest of full-disclosure, I did not like Spider-Man 2 very much either. I also have never read the Spider-Man comics. But I also like most movies, even the bad ones. My favorite part of Spider-Man 3 was seeing the back of haeddre‘s head during the jazz club scene.

There are possible minor spoilers below.

I dislike Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man and Peter Parker to begin with. If the purpose of this movie was to make the audience hate Peter Parker and his ego-centric, self-indulgent personality, it worked. By halfway through the movie I was hoping he’d miss with his webbing and fall to his death. Kirsten Dunst is cute but plays Mary Jane as a whiner which doesn’t really work for me either. James Franco was a highlight of the cast as Harry Osborn, despite his mercurial personality swings. Eddie Brock, played by Topher Grace, deserved a little more screen time and character development. Unfortunately, that screen time was sucked up by Peter Parker doing some sort of bizarre strutting montage.

Spider-Man 3 plods along painfully. I found the exposition in the beginning about 5 minutes longer than necessary especially since the previous movies have been fairly huge blockbusters. There was so much character and relationship development I wondered if the script had been written by a romance novel writer. There was an extended scene where Peter Parker struts about town, getting startled looks from random women on the street, to a horrible piece of music. I’m not sure if a selection from the Bee Gees would have made it better or worse but it certainly would have been fitting. The Jazz Club scene with Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy is also painfully long. The audience got the idea that Peter Parker was a cocky, self-centered egotistical asshole already, we didn’t need another extended musical scene for this. The best part of this scene is the end when Gwen apologizes to Mary Jane and storms out in tears leaving Peter behind. (Gwen Stacy is played by Bryce Dallas Howard from The Village and Lady in the Water if you’re trying to place her but can’t figure out where you’ve seen her.)

Another problem was an overpopulation of villains. Sandman and Venom and a new Goblin, oh my! Too many storylines (focused primarily on the villains’ hatred of Spider-Man, which I could totally relate to) were presented too quickly and even felt far too over-simplified and condensed to me. The special effects were not as amazing as in previous Spider-Man movies. Something about the cgi and the physics was just not as realistic. The result was a movie that felt like a character and relationship study that happend to have some bad guys and a little cgi. I have no idea where they spent all the money they supposedly spent on this movie. On talent, I guess?

Word is that Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst won’t be doing another Spider-Man movie. Good. Perhaps Sam Raimi should step down as director as well. These movies have created an interesting universe that could continue to be successful with better acting, writing and directing. I won’t feel quite as bad about driving up the opening weekend ticket sales results on this movie if a sequel happens with completely new people. It’s almost as if this comic book movie got lost somewhere. Perhaps the guy in the editing room thought he was editing a drama instead of an action comic book blockbuster.

It was so bad we came home and watched another movie (Shaun of the Dead) just to get Spider-Man 3 out of our heads.

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