I agree with pretty much everything Shack said.

It's got so much potential, but it just wastes it away. It throws in everything including the kitchen sink, trying to end the series on a high note, and it does not work at all. You've got Harry and Sandman and Venom and emo Peter and Gwen and MJ and it's all just thrown together, and very little of it sticks. Parts of it are good - pretty much the action sequences and the Venom stuff - but so much of it is incredibly laughable and borders on self-parody. I could go on and on with the stuff I found ridiculous, but I would take up an entire review with that, as there's just so much junk. I'll stick to the highlights.

The stuff that works is the entire church sequence - by far my favourite scene in the movie - and, to an extent, the action scenes. The final battle is quite cool with the four heroes/villains, but it's unfortunately punctuated by a terribly annoying newscaster + reporter explaining everything and Mary Jane screaming. The fights between Sandman and Spidey are very well done, and the Harry/Peter fight was pretty terrific. The Venom origin scene (in the church) is very cool and very dark and it works very well. But it's about the only perfect scene in the film. The rest is just bad, bad, bad.

The stuff that doesn't work is, well, everything else. Emo Peter doesn't even make sense, because, though he's got the emo hair, he doesn't act emo at all. He's like the cockiest jock at school with a terrible haircut. It makes no sense. Every single character, outside of Peter + MJ, disappears for like 20 minutes on end, and nobody notices! Gwen is brought up and then dropped, same with Marko, same with Brock, same with every other side character. It's extremely frustrating. Meanwhile, Harry gets amnesia (!) and a butler shows up out of nowhere to recap the last two movies (!!). Very random and very (unintentionally) hilarious.

The acting is almost uniformly terrible, with only Topher Grace occasionally impressing me. He was a hoot at times, but very meh at others. Still, he's better than Maguire (silly), Dunst (melodramatic), Franco (cheesy), Church (bland), and Howard (hot but not much else). Scenes which were supposed to be sad were instead laughable because of the terrible acting. It's truly painful to watch at times. The editing is simply atrocious - none of the scenes flow together, everything is jumbled up, it seemed like some scenes were missing and others were out of place. The effects are very stunning at times and rather not at others. And then the ending; to top it all off, we get multiple false endings! Just the cherry on top.

It's not a dreadful movie. It's got some good stuff in it, but it's overcome by the sheer weight of its lunacy. It's quite entertaining (if only for the unintentional hilarity) and rarely boring. The action scenes are top notch. But, as far as story and characters go, it's on the level of Batman + Robin. Really. A massive disappointment for me, and I'm not even a huge Spider-Man fan.

I think Lizard Man/Venom/Carnage are definitely the best options for a fourth film. Perhaps the final with teh current team.

Yeah IMAX is something else isnt it. I saw 300 for the 2nd time in IMAX and loved it more than the first time. So im thinking about doing the same with Spidey which I didnt see in IMAX unfortunately. I think i'll like it more the second time. First time is always clouded with high expectations. I found alot of flaws in the film but Im willing to overlook them as I enjoyed the film. The general audience liked the film alot more than here on KJ but that was to be expected.

hA hA!

i thought i was the only one who caught that. its like her face would burst.

raimi didn't even bother with the extra. i think he just said "SCREW IT" i don't wanna direct them.

You ask too many questions that are so painfully obvious in there reasonings that you deserve to be letdown.. He kissed Gwen because he went from nerd who could never get a hot chick like that to instant celebrity and as a result, it went to his head thus making him do what he did.. The U.S Flag stood for truth justice and the american way in reflection to SPIDERMAN Being a superhero and what he represented which was America.. Sorry Australia didn't get it..

I think they should put at least five villains in the next one. Spidey 3 just wasn't crowded enough...

Pfft why not have the characters from X-Men crash the party as well, it would be genius.

Obviously, America stands for truth and justice. I wonder why anyone outside the US could have missed that.

I dont mean they should have 3 villians but rather they'd play up the Lizard/symbiote angle and that could lead to Carnage. So two villians which would be ok.

This movie was terrible, just terrible

Hmmmm... why do I get the feeling I'm going to love this one?

Well it wasn't just ne, the whole cinema saw it....it doesn't help that she was right in the middle of the screen...she probably had enough I feel, too many takes

Didn't anyone else in your viewing giggle at it???

i was to busy doubling over with laughter to even notice. people were laughing throughout the film for me to remember what parts they found funny

I think that in future a barring order should be put on Kirsten Dunst singing, my ears are still angry at me.

For that part it would have been better if only the first row of the movie theater could hear her.

That's because it didn't move beyond the first row.

"Her voice couldn't be heard beyond the first row."
"That's ridiculous, I heard you and you were great."
"You were in the first row."

Or something along those lines.

Dunst has an admittably lackluster voice, but she's no worse than say, Sanjaya.

quick, whats the consensus.

Thanks guys. I left the movie pretty disappointed, with quite a few issues (though ultimately falling more positive than negative.)
Now, having read some of your thoughts, it's pretty easy to tell how wrong you are and how much better the film is than I'd thought. Gonna try it again tomorrow and hopefully confirm these suspicions, but some of these posts are outrageously nitpicky and petty. :O :O :up: : ) :O

Spider-Man D-
Spider-Man 2 D
Spider-Man 3 B

Yay. They got it right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sort of. Still had a few problems.

apparently, dancing around like an idiot on the streets connects with audiences

Some more random thoughts:

Spidey kissing Gwen: I didn't have a problem. Spider-man isn't real like Peter Parker is real. One reason I enjoy Spider-man so much is because Spider-man is the alter ego to Peter Parker, not the other way around. Spider-man is an act. So when he flew in to the parade, it was all Spider-man. MJ knew that too, but she wasn't so sure; remember, she asked if it was Peter Parker or Spider-man kissing her up on the stage. I thought it was pretty well done. Especially considering the backstory of Parker - a nerdy kid who never had much of a shot with any girl except MJ. Of course he would want a chance to flaunt his skills (which he does with the flipping and everything) and kiss a girl after the audience was yelling for it.

I missed the dance scene - I ran into the bathroom right as he and Gwen were walking in, and came back at the very end (when he had her in a pose exposing some awesome cleavage). His breaking point really didn't bother me at all though. I thought it was very nice (as nice as hitting your ex can be handled, anyway). The problem with that is how easily it seems MJ forgives him. There's no sign of their communicating after the dance scene, until she's stuck in the cab. They might have talked after Harry dies - I'm not sure, I was too busy trying to hide my laughter after the one-two combo of Sandman leaving than Harry dying. Then he shows up in the club and holds out his hand, and she just takes it, as if she doesn't need an explanation as to why he was a complete asshole to her. It doesn't flow at all.

Pete's voice over after Harry's funeral. What a joke. The voice-over-to-help-people-understand-the-theme was great in the first one, mostly because it really didn't talk about the theme; it just summarized the film and his thoughts on everything that had happened (and it added some great closure after the opening voiceover). The second film didn't even have a closing voiceover. The theme was strong enough to stand on itself. Both the first and ESPECIALLY the second took plenty of time to help build up the main theme. Spider-man 1: With great power comes great responsibility. Spider-man 2: In order to do the responsible and right thing, we often have to give up the things we want most. Even our dreams. Spider-man 3: I have no fucking clue. Something about making a choice. Not only did it seem to echo Spider-man 2, it felt tacked on, almost as if it were an afterthought to the movie.

The more I think about it, the more I love the scene with Bruce Campbell. Everything about it was spot on. Although the humor felt out of place in the context of what was happening between MJ and Pete, it was still awesome.

The sandman machine didn't bother me. They didn't bother to explain how Harry figured out how to use everything for the Goblin stuff, or where that weird floating surfboard came from, or where his new suit came from. They didn't try to explain where the meteor with the symbiote came from. Neither of those bothered me. This doesn't bother me either.

News team at the end? GTFO! Random American flag? GTFO! Fucking horrible extras through the entire movie? GTFO! Amnesia? GTFO (especially after using two movies to build up that relationship. Fucking ridiculous)! Basically the entire Sandman backstory and plot? GTFO! Sand man was a cool villian, fighting/action wise, but he wasn't developed enough and ultimately took away from developing everything/everybody else. His only real purpose served as a catalyst to keep Peter relying on the black suit for the power it has, as well as giving a reason to go to Harry at the end for help - Pete knew that he couldn't take on Venom and Sandman. With a bit of modification, those two points could have been handled someway else, leaving a lot more time for development of Brock, as well as being able to introduce Venom much earlier and give him more screen time and maybe another fight scene against Spider-man.

Its Spiderman the Musical!!

I liked the dancing scene. I did not like him kissing Gwen, so stupid and lazy from the writers point of view.

i don't seem to have a problem with the dance number everyone keeps talking aobut. however that shit on the street .. that was ridiculous

I saw this yesterday but have been holdin back on my opinion until i gave it some thought. now I'm a huge fan of the first two (both in my top 100) and i was very excited to see this one. I've never read the comics so i really dont know much about the villains or gwen stacy and all that bullcrap people have been bitchin about. To say i was hugely disappointed with the film would be an understatement.

I'm just going to give a rundown real quick of my likes and dislikes

The action was not very good. There were tons of action scenes but they were boring and i didnt think looked that cool.
The acting was pretty bad. Dunst did decent but Tobey seemed to cash it in. Franco did surprisingly well, Church did well and Grace did very well.
The villains were awful. The Sandman was boring and pointless, and Venom showed 10 minutes worth of screen time, come on now honestly? He is supposed to be one of Spidey's biggest nemesis' from what i hear and this is all he gets. And then he dies in the most pathetic way possible. Ridiculous
The F/X was good. The comedy worked well. I did like Emo Spidey until that annoying dance number.

I really felt the film should have been split into 2 films. If you're going to do venom, end the movie at the bell tower scene and have a different villain for #3 because sandman was just awful.

Overall i know its a mostly negative review but i still give it

B.