Spiderman 3 (film)

Spiderman 3 has been out for a while now but due to my general aversion to seeing blockbusters when they first come out (for I do so very hate crowded cinemas), I only just caught up with it this evening. And not without some reluctance - a trio of brothers (that is, my brother, my flatmate's brother and a friend's brother) strongly warned against seeing it, all three citing it "a waste of money - everybody cries".

So my flatmate and I, ever-sceptical of the respective tastes of those creatures known as brothers, decided we'd see for ourselves how bad it was. (A diversion: I'll never forget the night my brother made me watch 'Dead End' with him. Bloody (literally) waste of 90 minutes *grumble, grumble*). I would even go so far to credit our lowered expectations as the reason for our enjoyment of the film. But where to begin?

Firstly, I must say that I'm not a huge comic book adaptation fan. I like comic book adaptations in general, but I won't go crazy and watch every comic book adaptation. Hence, I've not seen Spiderman 2, which I believe may have impended my viewing of the sequel. (As you can tell, I'm getting more deductive day by day...).

Secondly, I must declare that I find Tobey Maguire nerdlicious. I liked him in 'Pleasantville' and 'Seabiscuit' and loved him in 'Wonder Boys'. I wouldn't throw myself at him, but I find it interesting that he's crafted a successful role as a cool nerd in most of his films. I also like the name Tobias. My camera's name is Tobias (the naming was not connected to Tobey Maguire but just thought I'd mention).

Okay, so the good stuff: the action scenes were sharp, the visual effects were awesome (especially the winnowing Sandman, that was cool) and Raimi looked as if he had fun - cue the montage of Parker becoming 'cool' including that hilarious revenge dance scene at MJ's Jazz Club.

The bad stuff: MJ is a weak character who either sings, screams or cries, (however) everyone cries, James Franco has a limited acting range (I'll never forget 'Tristan and Isolde' where he was out-acted by an eyebrow) and there are too many damn villains and sub-plots. This makes the film overly long, which is bad.

For the most part, 'Spiderman 3' is a good ride. If Raimi could have achieved the same effect with 100 mins and less slower, emotional scenes then I'd certainly rate it higher.

By the way, I've decided to change my rating system. From now on I'll be giving two ratings out of 10, one to reflect the strength of the film and the other to show how much I liked it.

Film rating: 6/10
Enjoyment rating: 8/10