I have such a love-hate relationship with Spider-Man 3
I know the internet has spent the last few years deciding it's actually good, and look. I get it. I do think the film is overhated and is genuinely better than most superhero films [especially the ones nowadays], but I think we're being a little too generous, and I need to say that out loud.
Technically, it might actually be the best Spider-Man film. The cinematography, the action, the score. Compare it to modern cape stuff, and you can see exactly how much has been lost. Even people who don't like this film would have a hard time saying it doesn't look good.
Harry Osborn is one-third of the main trio of these films, and he gets sidelined almost immediately for an amnesia subplot. His arc deserved to be slow and devastating and earned. Instead, it's two fights, and then he's suddenly on Peter's side again.
Then there's Peter being a jerk. which fine, sure, the black suit stuff is thematically appropriate. But we spent one whole film of him not getting with MJ, and they weren't even together until the end of the second one. And NOW they decided it was a good time to introduce Gwen Stacy on top of everything else? Really?
Venom also deserved so much better. Eddie Brock exists in this film as a final obstacle rather than a character with any real relationship to Peter. In a trilogy that built its best villains on emotional parallels with the hero, Venom feels completely disconnected. he's a symbol of the film's excess more than anything else.
Sandman, I actually have no issue with. Making him sympathetic is the right call [the man was an Avenger for a bit], but he deserved a better film around him. Honestly, the version of this film that works is Harry and Sandman as the two villains. Sandman takes things too far, and Harry forgives Peter in that moment. None of the Venom stuff. I understand why the film is the way it is, but it is what it is.
Spider-Man 3 is still good. It's just a 7/10 standing next to a 9/10 and a 10/10.
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