Sleestak's Review: Spider-Man 3

Too much, too much shoved into one film.

As a fan, I wished the creators would have just remained with the homage of the 1950s monster movie. With just that premise the film would have been less cluttered and been much more enjoyable. The movie started with creepy promise with a scene right out of the atom-age Cold War B-movies that I enjoy so much, even though the coincidence of the parasite's landing site to Peter Parker's night out was a bit much. I would rather have seen the parasite witness Spider-Man breaking up a bank heist and then deciding that Spidey was a superior host than the unhealthy, homeless park-dweller it may have initially latched onto, but that is just me.

With nearly every scene of the film I ran an alternate and preferred one in my head (and no, they didn't feature Spider-Man and Bryce Dallas Howard doing kinky things).

The movie then gets rushed into going nowhere fast, like a careless driver speeding to get to a red light. One of the story elements that bothered me is that many scenes seemed, like that pod-race Star Wars film, designed solely for the purpose of generating content for the Spider-Man 3 video game.

The inclusion of the Sandman and the back story was just not needed as the Venom and Eddie Brock story could have been enough. A highlight was that the greatest villain of the piece of course was not the Sandman or Venom but was instead Peter Parker himself. The parasite goaded Peter into being more confident and showed what could happen if he stopped hiding his talents, but soon he changed into an abusive bully. While it was good that Peter was characterized to be his own worst enemy as it is often in the comics, was it really required that not just one, but two villains are showcased to show Peter what he could become if he abused responsibility and power?

My Rating: 5 Ditko Faces out of possible 10

Tags: Spider-Man 3