Reaction: Spider-Man 3

It took me a long while to digest this movie but after a full 24 hours, I've come to a conclusion: the kids will love it. The newest (and possibly last) Spider-Man outing over-extends itself in all ways. The exaggerated behaviours of the characters when they mood swing from one extreme to another isn't new to the franchise. And the highly imaginative fight choreography has been ramped up yet again to breath-taking levels.

But something's amiss this time around. Fans clamoured to see Spidey take on the likes of Sandman. Fans wanted to follow-up with the Osborne legacy. Fans wanted Venom, who is arguably the most popular of the "modern age" Spider-villains. And fans asked what of Gwen Stacy if the movie continuity had adapted MJ into her role as child-hood crush? Well, this movie gave us answers to all of this... careful what you wish for.

Ultimately I found the problem was that this film struggled to introduce so many plot elements from the Spider-Man mythos that each of those plots suffered for it. And the film wound up being a fairly shallow exercise in pleasing the kids. It went in daring new directions (further diverging from the comics continuity than the previous two films) but not really getting anywhere. The plot lept from several parallel paths but never going into any depth with each. Previous movies where only 1 villain appeared at a time proved to be more cohesive and as a result much more satisfying when they were defeated.

If the persistent rumours that director Sam Raimi and stars Maguire and Dunst wanting to bow out of future installments are true, that still doesn't excuse the hollow feeling I get from watching this movie.