Movies: Spider-Man 3

The third entry in a trilogy is rarely the strongest. Terminator 3, Godfather 3, X-Men 3...the list of failed conclusions goes on and on. Unfortunately, Spider-Man 3 doesn't do much to break the third film curse, though it fares a bit better than *shudder* Alien 3.

For one, the movie doesn't forget the first two films - right from the start, it's clear all the threads from the first two movies are being continued. Whether it's Peter Parker's turbulent relationship with Mary Jane or Peter Parker's turbulent relationship with Harry Osborn, Sam Raimi seems hellbent on making sure that "Spider-Man 3" feels like the third part of a serial rather than some new cash cow.

There's a lot of raw emotion here, some of it not-so-successful. Peter and MJ's relationship never feels quite right, and Harry's character arc sometimes feels forced. On the upside, I felt Eddie Brock was handled pretty well in this film, which is good because of his eventual fate as a certain black-suited super-deadly supervillain...

The action scenes and fighting feel sort of muted, which may or may not be the right thing to do at this point. Raimi either felt intimidated or satisfied by his action scenes in the first and second movies, so the final fight feels anticlimactic, more of an emotional catharsis than the ultimate test of Spidey's abilities and superhero will.

All in all, the movie's guaranteed to make 130+ million dollars this weekend, which is good, considering it cost 250 million dollars to make.

Rating: 6/10