After a few years of struggling with his dual personalities, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has now found joy in his life. He has learned how to manage his dual lifestyles with the help of the love, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). On the outside everything looks great, he’s in love, he takes down the bad guys, and yes, he still manages to go to class and remains one of the college’s better students. Life could not be better. Even Mary Jane seems to have everything she is looking for, from Peter, to now her first big break in a Broadway Musical. While everyone seems happy, we are quickly reminded that things though, aren’t always as they seem. All of Peter’s success seems to quickly go to head. Spider-Man struggle early with staying Humble, and Parker seems more interested in talking to Mary Jane about himself, and less concerned with the problems and worries she has. There is definitely trouble in paradise very early on.

Along with such a minor problem, Spider-man must also deal with his former friend turned enemy in Harry Osborn/New Green Goblin (James Franco). While the two start off in a high flying, web slinging, hover bored from hell fight, the new Green Goblin doesn’t seem to stand much of a chance. After his fight with Peter, Harry begins to suffer from short term memory loss and now things seem like old times between these two friends. At the same time as all this is going on, Flint Marko has been running from the police. Escaped from prison now and running from the law, Flint runs off to see his young daughter (Who is sick and dieing). After promising to make things better for her, and find a way to get her cured, he runs off again. Running form police, he suddenly falls into some nuclear Sand pit. Unaware that he is there, scientists turn the machine on, and moments later, the Sandman is born. At the beginning of the film, we also see a small meteor hit the Earth, just feet away from Parker and Mary Jane as they embrace in a spider web in the park. A black gooey substance appears from the meteor and attaches itself to Peter one night in his sleep bonding him with an alien symbiote suit. The new black suit seems to give Spider-Man more amazing power, while also filling him with more aggression. Peter must now fight probably his most powerful enemy in the Sandman, while facing the his own inner demons and do what he can to win back the love of his life Mary Jane Watson.

Spider-Man 3 takes us on an amazing, action packed special effects ride of our life. From high flying super-heroes to the transformations of the Sand Man, one thing Spider-Man 3 does is keep us amazed at how real the whole thing looks. The big problem though is that this film tries to do in 140 minutes, what it should have done in 2 or 3 films. By the end, this is abundantly clear. Many of the films story lines are never developed well and some are never really completed. From the tension that seems to grow between Peter and Mary Jane, to the development of the character Sandman, and the absolutely ridiculous ending of the storyline of Peter and Harry’s feuding (Thank god for Harry’s butler), there is never enough time given to any one storyline to make it seem as real as the special effects used in the film. The whole thing goes by to quickly and in the end, even the effects just get old. Peter’s transformation with the black suit, aside form one moment in the film where he backhands Mary Jane, is just a comical montage that does very little to explain how dangerous the suit was.

The acting of the film was ok, aside from just a few characters. James Franco gives us his worst performance as Harry Osborn. Often trying to hard to play a character with memory loss, he seemed more like a child again. Franco seemed to play it more as a kid who is just mentally slow, than just suffering form amnesia. Maguire was ok, except for a few scenes near the end, when he attempts to cry. This comes off very awkward. Kirsten Dunst was the one who surprised me the most. Her first scene shows her on stage in a musical singing. I had no idea Dunst was such a good singer, and she did a great job through the whole film. While I will admit she seemed a bit whiney at times, I don’t think you can blame her because the writers did such a bad job on this film. They wrote her character in a way that portrayed her like this. Her character seemed to act so much differently in this film that in the other two. I would also like to say, that Bruce Campbell steels the show. His character, even though its only for about 4 minutes, brings life to this otherwise flat film.

While Raimi is in talks now for Spider-Man 4, I think it would be great if he took on the task, but lets another person do the writing. He, like so many other filmmakers in today’s era needs to remember one important thing. Special effects for the most part are here to enhance a film. They are not here to be the film. Basic story telling rules apply to film, and no matter how good the effects are, a film will never be great without a solid and complete story. Unfortunately for Spidey fans, that was not the case in Spider-man 3.