A huge disappointment. Many of the critics have been saying the film was overstuffed. I think the film was more like undercut. If it was overstuffed, I would have been tired of action scenes and new characters. This film was not as bad as other part 3s in the comic world, but it did not break the curse. The problem starts at the script level. The problems went from simple issues to 258 million dollar issues. The dialogue is melodramatic, many scenes are silly. Kirsten Dunst has been given a bad rap: her dialogue was terrible and that should have been identified by Raimi. Sam Raimi's brother wrote the script and obviously that familial relationship got in the way of pushing the film to being better. The action scenes in my opinion were short. Way short. The dialogue scenes were drawn out and undercut. The funny parts would have remained funny if they were shorter. The comedy was drawn beyond funny. I actually didn't mind Parker strutting around, particularly with ordering around the landlord's daughter, I minded the scene where he jumped around a club to a ridiculous extent, taking the comedy too far.

The cinematography of this film is bland. So many flat compositions. A scene of Aunt May describing Uncle Ben proposing was one wide shot. Why not cut around, close ups and such? When she says ring, why not close up on that ring? Where is the coverage?! Where is the action? So much talking back and forth to a ridiculous extent. And I hated the crowds cheering spiderman. So sacharine! So unnatural! Was this movie 258 million dollars?!!!! The sets are so confined, they don't look out on anything. So much of the film feels closed in a studio and not the wide city that Spiderman 2 brought with it.

I thought Venom was great. Great design. I liked Topher Grace's portrayal. Sandman's scenes were so melodramatic. Great acting, bad script. Venom needed more scenes. The editing was so bad, the film really needed to excise so much of the first half of the film and have Venom more prevalent in the last half. So much of the film needed to be cut out. The scene with Harry dancing with MJ in his place while he cooked? They could have cut that dance. All they needed was him looking at her, her looking at him, and that actually charming line about the omelette. It would have saved us 2 minutes of a 3 minute scene. Was there a lack of coverage in these scenes? It seemed the editor had nothing to cut to.

I think Sam Raimi was out of steam on this film. Spiderman 2 was such a great comic book film, it should have been passed to someone with passion for the work. He seemed to want to make another movie, which it feels like a poorly made relationship film and not a Spiderman film. He didn't bring out the best of his people, maybe because now they are all friends and relatives and he didn't want to step on their toes. If he didn't like Venom, he should have fought Avi Arad on it. Though I thought his Venom was great. And why on earth did Spiderman and Mary Jane have to go through this melodrama? Why not let them stay together and work out how they deal with villains wanting to get to her to get to him? Seems more powerful and less cliched to me.