My previously published review (edited):
"Normally, I wouldn't do this. Not on AG anyway. If I wanted to tear a movie to shreds, I'd do it elsewhere. But my paper editors say I can't write my column this week about Spidey 3, and I can only talk so much crap on air about it on my shitty little internet station.
So you get to bear the brunt of my desire to write a cathartic missive about possibly the biggest trainwreck of a movie I have seen all year. Lucky you.
Forget the plot. Spidey is "darker" for no apparent reason. We know because he has an emo fringe and this gloopy black stuff has attached itself to his scooter and is making him scowl, pout and in one case do a jazz dance routine. Seriously.
Harry 'Son of Willem Dafoe' Osborne has a funky new green goblin glider and some cool kit that looks the biz in the fight scenes. That's the good news. The bad news is his character is a mess and seems to be on a quest to discover as many new plot holes as possible.
New villain Thomas Hayden Church gets possibly the best special effects as the Sandman (they really are bloody good) but arguably the worst backstory. And the final scene between Sandman and Peter goes beyond cliche into stab-me-in-the-heart territory. Mary Jane, far from being the fully-fleshed-out character she was in the first two films, is at a complete loss here. Kirsten Dunst, who previously made the role her own, f***s up royally. End of story.
Then there is Venom. But we'll get to that in a minute.
The thing is, I was being completely sincere when I said this film was a trainwreck. Sam Raimi has tried to shoehorn a lot in here, and to be fair he was always going to win respect from the fanboys by sticking Gwen Stacy, the black suit saga and the identity of Ben Parker's killer in, all in one go. But he just can't pull it off. There is too much, with the result that way too many plot strings are left unnatended for too long. The film flops and wriggles like a beached whale, as godawful editing and shoddy script work poke at it with a rusty harpoon. The special effects are indeed very special, but it all feels a bit hollow.
But you see, I would have forgiven Raimi everything. If he'd got Venom right.
A well-done onscreen version of possibly the coolest comic book villain of all time would have made it all better. Spidey's ultimate nemesis is a rampaging, bulky, dark-purple suited, toothy monster, who roars and rampages his way across Manhattan eating small children. In the movie, Venom is a slight, half-baked enemy, tiny in comparison to the built comic book version, and he never roars or even utters the cla**ic "We will eat your brains!". Instead, he's a fey, wimpish Topher Grace, about six sizes too small, who talks normally.
The whole point is that Venom and Eddie Brock are always locked in a horrific internal combat. Brock's voice only emerges when the venom-face pulls back. Venom talks, but certainly not in Brock's normal voice. Call this nitpicking - it is nitpicking - but it goes a long way to destroying the makeup of the character. Sod you, Sam.
And the thing is (and you're going to hate me for saying this) the first two movies kicked a**. They got it right in more ways than it is possible to get right. They were clean, focussed, well-acted, well-scripted and magnificent. Spidey 3 sets its sights high, but fails on nearly all counts. Not even Bruce Campbell as a snooty French waiter can save this.
What a colossal pity."
