Spider-Man 3

It's not that Spider-Man 3 is bad, said Steven Rea in The Philadelphia Inquirer. It's just that it's worse than the first two installments of the franchise. Souped up with extra villains, extra special effects, and an extra 20 minutes, this film is rumored to have cost as much as $500 million. But where the original Spider-Man film balanced its action sequences with a whole lot of heart, this one is all bombast. In trying to do too much, director Sam Raimi has spun the film away from its emotional center. 'œThere's a certain desperation evident in the plot's busyness, and a bloated quality that may come from having too many villains, too many characters, too many big set pieces, and too much money to toss around.'

Let me see if I can summarize it all, said Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun. Not only does Spider-Man, in his everyday life as photographer Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), have to deal with girlfriend issues, but his former friend Harry has put on Green Goblin's mask and set his sights on killing Spider-Man. A rival photographer (Topher Grace) happens to be moonlighting as a villain called Venom, and another named Sandman is on the loose. Soon Spider-Man himself has his personality overtaken by an otherworldly black goo. In past films, Raimi gave his villains psychological motives, but here he goes haywire with the psychobabble. 'œEach villain has a sympathetic reason for turning bad: a malevolent dad, an ailing daughter, a shattered fantasy, or a festering wound over an ugly and untimely death.' It's enough to make you wish for some plain old evil.

One of these villains really lights up the screen, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. The creation of Sandman is easily the best scene in the film, as well as a dazzling technological achievement. When Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) falls into a 'œparticle atomizer,' he becomes a pile of sand that heaves with life, struggling to assemble itself into a man-shaped monster. 'œThere's poetry in this metamorphosis, not just technical bravura.' The fleeting but exciting scene brings to mind Parker's spine-tingling mutation in the first film.

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Spider-Man

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Spider-Man 3