At the end of the day, Raimi was trying to give us a Spider-Man film that dealt with bigger and more important personal issues, whether that worked for you or not is entirely up to the viewer. I also think Thomas Haden-Church's performance as Sandman is nothing to scoff at, reminding me of the character depth that made Doc Ock so memorable. If only the dialogue surrounding the action could match the brutality. The CGI is definitely dated when looking back on it after 10 years, but the action is as visceral as anything in any Spider-Man film to date. Raimi, as he proved in the first two, is great at shooting high-scale action. I don't mind having Harry go the villainous route, but the memory loss was all a bit of a headache. Having him get 'hit in the head' and lose his memory for half the film was one of the stupidest and laziest decisions I can remember from a comic-book film. This was far from the Peter Parker we came to love in the first two films.Īnother headache was the direction they took Harry Osborn. It's one thing to have the symbiote change Peter, but it's another thing to have him physically abuse Mary Jane, and nearly kill his best friend Harry multiple times. Only, it did the exact opposite.Īnother thing that definitely didn't win over fans was the fact that this film made Peter Parker an absolute jerk. Venom is, more or less, just a third act reveal that is meant to please fans. None of the three villains are all that great, but there's at least some emotional undercurrent with both Sandman and Harry.

Apparently, the studio forced Venom on Sam Raimi and hence making Harry & Sandman's arc far less effective when the final act is bogged down by a silly attempt at bringing Venom to the big screen. Only a few films have tried balancing more than one villain, Spider-Man 3 being the classic example of how not to do it. This was the first trilogy of superhero films that I connected with, and at 13 years-old I was willing to forgive many of the mistakes this film made, most of which I cannot forgive a decade later. Like the previous two films, there's a tremendous amount of nostalgia attached to this film for me. Ah, the Spider-Man film that nearly ruined the franchise, Spider-Man 3.

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