Spidey 3

I took my daughters to see Spider-man 3 today. It's worth watching, but it suffers from 'third movie syndrome'. It's a bit bloated, with each of the bad guys (there's three-Sandman, Venom and Goblin,Jr.- called 'New Goblin' in this apparently, according to the action figures I've seen) each having their own story arc, but none of them have enough screen time to develop properly, and because there are so many villains , and villain's origin sequences, this means the film goes on at least a half hour too long.

Since the Bourne Identity came out, most fight scenes I've seen since in big action films have copied its close-up shaky camera fighting scenes. Batman Begins, Casino Royale and now Spidey 3 have this similar technique. It doesn't work in this film, a lot of the time it was hard to follow what was happening. With the earlier Spidey movies, most of the fight scenes happened in daylight, in this one, they all happen at night, except for one, which ends up underground (ie. dark) making it even harder to follow, especially when Spidey has the black outfit on.

I did enjoy it, though, the scene with Flint Marko trying to pull himself back together after first being made into sand to grab a locket which has a picture of his dying daughter was a great one. after this, though, he hardly says anything and spends most of his screen time either being a dust cloud or a giant sand monster, the type of monster we've seen before in the Mummy movies. It's a shame, I've always liked Sandman as a character, it's a pity he wasn't given more to do.

Tobey Maguire was great, though, especially when the black suit turns him a little bit bad. Like Superman III , our hero goes off the rails. When Christopher Reeve went bad, he just grew a five o'clock shadow and wore burgundy boots, but when Tobey goes bad, he combs his fringe down and wears eyeliner. Apparently, being bonded with an evil alien symbiote turns you into a member of My Chemical Romance! Also, I thought Harry Osborn's story in this film was great, and maybe should've been the film's only antagonist. It's just a shame they didn't give him (or his dad) the stripey hair he has in the comics. That's a great look(See picture) .Also, Bruce Campbell is great in his cameo, taking his frenglish accent from Peter Sellers and/or 'Allo 'Allo!

Venom, when he turns up, was a bit of a disappointment. he's only in it for about fifteen minutes, but the climactic fight at the end is exciting, except for Mary Jane being kidnapped and held hostage to get Spidey to come and fight them. Again! This happened at the end of the last two movies as well. Also marring this sequence is a really annoying British news reporter who gives an ongoing commentary to the action.

Gwen Stacy (Played by Ron Howard's daughter Bryce Dallas Howard. She has red hair in real life, yet she plays a blonde. Kirsten Dunst, who is Blonde, plays a ginge. Seems strange to me.) is introduced, then forgotten about, total waste of time. Implicating Flint Marko as Uncle Ben's killer also wasn't really needed either, in my opinion. Topher Grace is good as Eddie Brock, but again, not given enough screen time.

Generally, though, it's an entertaining movie, not as bad as I'd feared it was going to be. The kids loved it, they're not encumbered with thirty-odd years of comic nerdiness like I am.