Spider-Man 3 (5 Stars)

Something funny happened today. I sat down to watch "Spider-Man 3". The film began. And then, in the first few seconds, while the Columbia logo was being displayed, a spider lowered itself between me and the television. It was hanging on its web from the ceiling. I was so fascinated that I paused the film to watch it. It hung in front of me for no more than 60 seconds. Then it pulled itself back up to the ceiling, and I haven't seen it since.

A lot of people say that they don't like "Spider-Man 3". I agree that it's not up to the quality of the first two films, but it's still very good. Look at my rating! But too much is happening. Why have Sandman and Venom in the same film? Sandman could have filled the whole film. And the telescoping of the black suit stories removes a lot. In the comics Peter Parker wore the black costume for four years, before it was passed on to Eddie Brock. This story could have been divided into two films. Or three. It looks like Sam Raimi was in a hurry to get the trilogy finished.

Look at the way Sandman lumbers around like a monster from Hammer Horror. And look at the screenshot of Venom in the title picture. This is what Venom should look like, not the comical sock puppet in the Tom Hardy films.

Sam Raimi was planning to use the Vulture as the villain in "Spider-Man 4" and Mysterio in "Spider-Man 5". He was even considering casting Bruce Campbell as Mysterio. But it never happened. I read reports of disagreements between Sam and Marvel Studios. I shan't repeat them here, because I'm not even sure they're true. Just speculation. Whatever happened, the three films he made will always stand up as masterpieces.

Success Rate:  + 1.5

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Under the Silver Lake (3½ Stars)

Conspiracy theories! I love them! It's not that I believe them, I just find them fascinating. It's beautiful the way random facts can be linked together to create a new truth. Just to take one example, the theory that the Moon landing was faked. Clues are strung together from Stan Kubrick's films which are supposed to be a confession that he created the Moon landing in a film studio. Of course, it's nonsensical for anyone to say "I believe the conspiracy theory that <fill-in-the-blank>". As soon as you believe something, you no longer call it a conspiracy theory, you call it a fact.

That's what "Under the Silver Lake" is about. A young man called Sam who lives in Hollywood observes things happening around him. The richest man in Los Angeles has gone missing. Dogs are being killed. His neighbour moves out of her apartment overnight, after she's seen with a man dressed as a pirate. He thinks they're connected, and his investigations lead him into contact with a comic book writer who's a walking encyclopaedia of Los Angeles conspiracy theories; except he doesn't call them conspiracy theories, he calls them facts. A woman who's naked apart from a bird mask has been killing men for hundreds of years. A free gift in a cereal packet is a map of secret locations in Los Angeles. A new pop group, Jesus and the Brides of Dracula, has been putting secret messages in their songs. There's a secret society, an elite in Los Angeles, that can read the messages. Everyone else is blissfully ignorant.

When I watched the film the first time I gave it a high rating. It doesn't seem so good the second time round. What I like is the atmosphere and the mystery. When the mystery is unravelled, the explanations are so absurd that I can't accept them. I don't want to go into them, except to say that the explanations are more absurd than the theories themselves. Let me give a parallel: In the case of the faked Moon landing, someone finds out that Stanley Kubrick was hired to make the film by inhabitants of the Moon who wanted to remain secret. That's a similar level of insanity.

On the other hand, I've read film reviews that claim that the final scenes aren't really happening. Sam is so obsessed with his conspiracy theories that he imagines things that justify them. In general, I reject film interpretations that claim everything is imagined or dreamt or the visions of a psychotic breakdown. In this case it makes better sense than accepting the final scenes at face value. Did Sam kill the neighbour that he thought had moved out? Anything is possible in a film like this.

Success Rate:  - 3.9

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Spider-Man 3 (5 Stars)

The third film in the Spider-Man trilogy is strongly criticised by film critics and fans alike. Many call it awful. I don't understand it. I find it very good, even if it's not up to the quality of the first two films. I included it in my list of my top 100 films in 93rd place. In retrospect I think it should have been higher in the list.

"Spider-Man 3" has so much in its favour. It neatly brings the Harry Osborn storyline to a close. The Sandman is brought to the big screen as a villain we can sympathise with. The pathos of Peter Parker's on-off relationship with Mary Jane Watson tugs at our heartstrings. My only criticism of the film is that it's too short to do Venom justice. It should have lasted three hours to give bigger battles with Venom.

I'm glad I had enough time to watch the whole trilogy without interruption over the last three days. I haven't written much about the films. Do I need to? I'm not a professional writer. I'm not paid to write 2000 words a day. If I have something on my mind I'll write it, and if I don't I shan't force myself.

The singer Prince was notorious for his sexual activities. At every party he visited he picked up another woman. His songs were also very sexual. In an interview he was asked what he liked doing most: having sex or writing songs about sex. His initial reaction was to laugh and call it a silly question. Then he became pensive and said that he didn't know the answer. Both were important to him. In the same way, I can be asked whether I prefer watching films or writing about films. I prefer watching films, but after eleven years of writing my blog I find that writing about films is also very important to me. Sometimes I write a big post, and the writing takes up more time than I spent watching the film. I enjoy watching films. I enjoy writing about films. I can't separate the two.

Success Rate:  + 1.5

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Spider-Man 3 (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #93

This is the third film in the original Spider-Man trilogy. It neatly ties up all the storylines from the first two films, as well as introducing new villains: Sandman and Venom. I use the names that they were given in the comics. In the film they're referred to as Flint Marko and Eddie Brock.

As in "Spider-Man 2", the opening credits contain a recap of the previous events. A subtle recap, just enough to nudge the viewer's memory, not enough to tell him everything. This time the recap is in the form of photos, not drawings.

The recap includes the Kiss (with a capital K) from the first film. Cold. Rainy. Passionate. And an awkward angle. I've never tried kissing like that. Are there any women who'd volunteer? I shan't hang upside down. I'm not Spider-Man. I'll just lie on a sofa and let you approach me from above for the kiss (with a small K).

The Spider-Man trilogy is the love story of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. That's strongly emphasised in the first film, but it's true of all three films. That's what makes Sam Raimi's films better than the subsequent Spider-Man films. People can relate to love stories, even if they aren't interested in super-heroes.

There are problems for the relationship in the form of a beautiful blonde called Gwen Stacy.

(This is actually in the wrong order. In the comics Gwen Stacy was Peter Parker's girlfriend before he dated Mary Jane).

Peter even kisses Gwen. Just a publicity stunt.

But Mary Jane is shocked. That was her special kiss.

It's even worse when Mary Jane has to see the kiss (with a small K again) on the front page of the newspapers.

It's all made worse by the arrival of an alien symbiote. It bonds to Spider-Man by taking the appearance of a black costume. I have to admit that it looks cool. It gives Spider-Man additional strength when he's wearing it. Unfortunately, it has an adverse effect on his personality. Peter Parker becomes more arrogant and self-centred. This drives away Mary Jane.

Peter's closest friends give him advice. Aunt May speaks words that are wiser than anything she ever said in the comics:

"I don't think it's for us to say whether a person deserves to live or die".

There's also a stranger that Peter meets in the street.

"You know, I guess one person can make a difference. Nuff said!"

One of the side effects of bonding with the symbiote is that Peter Parker becomes irresistible to women. They turn and look at him in the street. He also attracts his landlord's daughter, Ursula Ditkovitch.

Ursula is played by Mageina Tovah. She has a pretty face...

... but she really needs to put on weight. I wouldn't hug her because I'd be afraid I might crush her.

Is there a future for Mary Jane in Peter Parker's life? Can she survive in the shadow of Spidey the Mighty? I shan't give you an answer, but I think you can guess.

Success Rate:  + 1.5

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Spider-Man 3 (5 Stars)

Finally! After barely seeing Stan Lee in the first two films he has a lengthy cameo in this film. Relatively lengthy. He appears for 13 seconds, compared with 1.5 seconds in the two previous films. He even has a speaking role, imparting his wisdom as he speaks to Peter Parker at Times square.

"You know, I guess one person really can make a difference... 'Nuff said!"

Everyone knows that "Nuff said" is one of Stan Lee's trademark phrases, second only to "Excelsior". At least, everyone ought to know. I fear that many younger Marvel fans have never read his comics. They're missing out.

As a result of the film featuring three villains, "Spider-Man 3" suffers from more telescoping than the previous films. The following events all take place in the film in short succession.

1. Flint Marko becomes the Sandman (Spider-Man #4, September 1963).
2. Harry Osborn becomes the new Green Goblin (Spider-Man #136, September 1974).
3. Peter Parker first wears the black suit (Spider-Man #252, May 1984).
4. Eddie Brock becomes Venom (Spider-Man #300, May 1988).

That's not meant as a criticism. Telescoping is necessary when making films based on comic book stories.

I usually praise the director Sam Raimi so much that my readers must think he's paying me to write about him. No, I'm not being bribed. Maybe there's one criticism I can make of his films, especially the third. He lets Spider-Man take off his mask too often. That's not realistic. It almost never happened in the comics. The mask was worn to conceal his secret identity, so taking it off would have put him at risk.

Venom is supposed to be the film's main villain, as we can see from the fact that he's the one shown on the film's posters, but I think that Sandman is more important. He's given a tragic poignancy that's missing in the comics. Once more Sam Raimi has taken one of Stan Lee's characters and breathed new life into him, without taking away anything that he had in the comics.

We even start to like J. Jonah Jameson. Even though he's obsessed with turning the populace against Spider-Man, he's not really a bad person. He's only doing what he thinks is right, which is what any upstanding citizen should do.

After appearing as a wrestling ring announcer in the first film and an obnoxious theatre usher in the second film, he's now an overly friendly waiter with a false French accent. Are they three different characters or the deadly Mysterio waiting to strike? Let me know what you think.

I'm aware that many film fans call "Spider-Man 3" a bad film. They're wrong. It's not quite up to the level of the first two films, but it's still good enough to receive a five star rating from me. It could have been improved by making it longer. It has too many plots and sub-plots crammed into a two-hour film. I would have added at least half an hour to it. What's missing is a big battle between Venom and Spider-Man before Venom teams up with Sandman.

I've watched the three Sam Raimi Spider-Man films repeatedly over the years, but this is the first time since 2010 that I've watched them back to back. That's the best way to enjoy them. By watching them in quick succession I can better appreciate the character development from film to film.

Success Rate:  + 1.5

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Under the Silver Lake (4½ Stars)

This is the 20th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

"Under the Silver Lake" is the film I was most looking forward to in this year's film festival. The trailer (which I'd seen at least five times in the cinema) fascinated me. The film almost lived up to my expectations. Almost, but not quite. I think the film has too much humour. I would have preferred it if it had been played completely seriously. That's the only reason I've deducted half a star.

Andrew Garfield plays Sam, a young man who lives in an apartment building in Los Angeles. He falls in love with another resident that he sees in the building's swimming pool late at night. They arrange to meet again the next day, but when he arrives at her apartment the next morning, only a few hours later, she's moved out. Her furniture and everything else is gone. Who moves out in the middle of the night?

Sam becomes convinced that there's a giant conspiracy going on around him. He thinks that there are secret messages being passed around that only a rich and powerful elite can understand. He finds clues in symbols scribbled on walls, in comic books and in song texts. Someone is killing dogs in Los Angeles in order to fulfil an ancient prophecy. A new rock band, Jesus and the Daughters of Dracula, seems to be involved. The prostitutes in an elite escort agency know more than they admit.

There's a parallel world in Los Angeles. While normal people go about their lives there are others who are living in a different world. Sam wants to find out the truth.

BlacKKKlansman (4½ Stars)

This is a thought-provoking film that's based on true events. The events portrayed actually took place in 1979, but the film has been set in 1972 for purposes of dramatisation.

Ron Stallworth becomes the first black police officer in Colorado Springs. After doing boring work in the records department he's given an undercover assignment. He's sent to listen to the speech of a former Black Panther leader hosted by the Black Student Union of Colorado High. Despite the extreme rhetoric about killing policemen he reports back that he doesn't find the speaker dangerous. It's all talk.

Shortly afterwards he makes a plan to infiltrate the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan under his own initiative. He speaks to the local president on the phone, but he can't visit him in person, obviously. The infiltration becomes a two-man job. Ron makes the phone contact, while his colleague Phil Zimmerman – a Jew – takes his place in the personal meetings.

That's all I'll say about the story itself. What remains with me after seeing the film is the ugly nature of the racism expressed by the KKK members. I've seen films about racism before, but never one like this. The most disgusting racist statements are said in the most natural of ways, as if it's obvious that Jews and Negroes are inferior. I found it difficult to talk about the film with my friends afterwards. I was overwhelmed.

I only have one small criticism. "Birth of a Nation", of which excerpts are shown, isn't as bad as it's made out to be. Watch it for yourself and make up your own mind.

This is a film I really need to see again. I'll probably discuss it in more detail in my next review.

Predators (3½ Stars)

This is the best of the Predator films so far. I can't quite bring myself to give it four stars, mainly because I can't feel any empathy with the alien creatures, but the film stands out above the others because of its outstanding cast. Finally there's a Predator film with people who can act! Another advantage is that the original script was written by Robert Rodriguez.

Unlike the first two films, "Predators" doesn't take place on Earth. The film opens with eight people from different backgrounds who don't know one another falling from the sky into a jungle on an alien planet. There are others, but not all of them survive the fall. They have parachutes, but at the moment they begin to fall they're still asleep, so not all of them manage to open their parachutes in time.

What the eight survivors realise when they meet is that they're all experts in their respective fields of fighting skills. There are four elite soldiers, two criminal enforcers and a serial killer who was waiting on death row. The eighth is a medical doctor who doesn't seem to fit into the group.

As they find out from a human survivor they meet in the jungle, the planet is a type of safari park. Humans are brought to the planet ten at a time. Three creatures hunt them in the jungle. When the hunt is over another ten humans are dropped from the sky and another three creatures come to hunt them, in an endless cycle. Usually the hunt ends when the humans are all dead, but on rare occasions humans manage to kill the creatures and are left on the planet to participate in the next cycle.

At the beginning I said that I feel no empathy for the creatures. Maybe that's not the right way to describe my feelings, but I can't think of a better word than "empathy". The viewer isn't expected to like the creatures, the Predators, but I always want to get inside the head of the bad guys in any film I watch. I want to understand why they do what they do. The best villains, like Loki in the Marvel films and Blofeld in the James Bond films, are charismatic and likeable. Even villains like the Terminators are easy to understand: they've been programmed for self-survival, i.e. they want to kill John Connor before he kills them. I can understand that. I can even relate to it on an abstract level. But the Predators? They kill for sport. That's all.

I know that people kill for sport in the real world. There are safari parks in Africa, but for me they're barbaric. They bring out the worst in humanity. When I was working Bosch in Homburg I had a colleague who went on safari trips. He boasted about all the animals he had killed. He once told me that it's no fun shooting elephants. "They're stupid animals. They just walk straight towards you and don't try to avoid you when you shoot them in the head".  My initial reaction was one of disbelief. I looked at him like he was crazy. Once it sank in my feelings turned to rage. I wasn't really angry with my colleague; for me he was just an idiot who didn't know better. I was angry with owners of African game parks that offer rich Europeans a holiday killing for money. He told me that he had to pay a fee for each animal he killed. Barbaric. That's the only word to describe it.

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Spider-Man 3 (5 Stars)

Whenever I talk to friends about this film I go off on a rant. I've heard so many people call this a bad film that I want to strangle anyone who dares repeat it in my presence. "Spider-Man 3" is a brilliant film that neatly concludes the Green Goblin trilogy. Following films directed by Sam Raimi would have ascended to new heights, but it wasn't to be. Sam Raimi was fired, "Spider-Man 4" never happened, there was a new Spider-Man and Ben Parker had to die again, this time with an annoying sub-plot about Peter Parker's parents that was left unfinished before it got too embarrassing.

"Spider-Man 3" might be slightly weaker than the first two parts of the trilogy, but it's still better than any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films made since 2008. Only the last two Captain America films come close. What makes the film so good is that Sam Raimi has the mentality of an early Marvel writer. I can imagine him sitting in the bullpen writing a new script in the early 1970's. Sam Raimi has a deep respect for the source material of the original comics that the later directors, even Joss Whedon, don't have.

There was something about Marvel comics that was strongest in the 1960's, continued into the 1970's, but then grew gradually weaker. I sum up this something with one word: the comics were corny. That isn't a criticism, it's intended as high praise. Stan Lee's stories were full of tropes that made the stories predictable, but in such a way that we turned each page hoping for something to happen, and we weren't satisfied until we got what we wanted. There are the awkward romances. The heroes rarely got the girl, they were too shy and introspective, or they were afraid that anyone they were close to would be in danger from their enemies. The enemies, powerful super-villains, were driven by revenge, so after a few stories they're no longer committing crimes, they're obsessed with attacking the heroes. Another common trope was the rivalry between the super-heroes, leading to frequent fights. Spider-Man fought the Human Torch, Hawkeye fought Captain America, and the Hulk battled with every other hero as time went by. Then we had the super-villain team ups, which almost always started with the words, "We don't like one another, but we have a common enemy, so let's team up to fight <fill-in-the-blank>". This led to unlikely pairings like Doctor Doom and the Submariner, or the Sandman and Blastaar.

Sam Raimi understands this. "Spider-Man 3" is corny, down to the core. Peter Parker ended the second film in a happy relationship with Mary Jane Watson, but in "Spider-Man 3" he ruins it. Venom and the Sandman teamed up because, well, it's what super-villains do. It's corny.

So much is going on in "Spider-Man 3" that I initially thought the film is too short. In a past review I said that it should have been half an hour longer. I'm no longer certain. The chaotic mix of different subplots is typical for the 1960's Spider-Man comics. Peter Parker's life was a crazy soap opera with exaggerated melodramas overlapping one another. Sam Raimi has captured this, maybe even more successfully than in the previous two films.

The lack of realism is also part of Marvel's inherent corniness in the 1960's. Most of the Marvel films attempt to make scientific explanations to make the source of super powers credible. Why is that necessary? Stan Lee never tried to explain. Bruce Banner was exposed to gamma rays and became the Hulk. Reed Richards and his fellow astronauts were exposed to cosmic rays and became the Fantastic Four. What are gamma rays? What are cosmic rays? Who cares? So many of the super-hero origin stories are ridiculous if they're analysed, but the readers accepted them unquestioningly. The origin stories were corny. That made them good.

We see this in the scene where Flint Marko becomes the Sandman. He falls into a pit where scientists are doing a ridiculous looking experiment on sand. He's bombarded with some sort of rays. I'm sure Stan Lee would have a name for them if we asked him. The rays make him able to turn his body into sand. His shirt also turns into sand and can later become cotton again. This means he's doomed to wear the same black and green striped shirt for the rest of his life. I challenge anyone to write an explanation of how this could happen, even using scientific phenomena that we haven't yet discovered. It's all so corny.

"Spider-Man 3" is corny, from beginning to end. Marvel needs to hire Sam Raimi again. He's the only one who can make truly great Marvel films. Films like "Spider-Man 3".

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Interstellar (3 Stars)

This is Christopher Nolan's most ambitious film to date, exceeding even "Inception" in its scale. It's his first attempt to create a film that can be called an epic, depending on your definition of the word. It's also his biggest failure. In his attempt to write a film that stretches across billions of miles and dozens of years he's produced a piece of work that is painfully slow.

The film begins in the near future when the human race is in danger of extinction. Dust clouds are killing almost all the crops, leading to mass starvation. The film's hero, Cooper, is recruited to fly a mission through a wormhole to find habitable planets to relocate the human race.

The twists and turns in the plot, which I won't further discuss here, rely on a huge bootstrap paradox. Human beings from the far future are sending back information needed to save the human race. They don't seem to be very good at it. Rather than send barely comprehensible messages, couldn't they have phoned up the Earth's top scientists and told them what to do? Or better still, couldn't they have sent a big rescue pod back in time to whisk everyone away to a new home? The film doesn't make sense.

The contrast between the lazy farming community and the space exploration is deliberate, but I found the farm scenes too boring. The talks about ghosts annoyed me, and I only tolerated them because it was obvious that it would be relevant later in the film.

Stanley Kubrick left a legacy with "2001: A Space Odyssey". This is clearly what Christopher Nolan intended. Whereas Stanley Kubrick's film is a classic of cinema that will never be forgotten, Christopher Nolan's Space Odyssey fizzles out before it even starts.

American Ultra (2½ Stars)

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the cinema.....

No, I shouldn't make a joke of it, it was a very pleasant experience, even if it was unusual. While walking to Cineworld to see "American Ultra" with my fellow members of the Birmingham Film Group I was stopped by a pretty young woman offering me a jelly bean. I immediately accepted. We got into a conversation with one another. It seems like I was the first person to accept a sweet from her. Everyone else thought she had an ulterior motive. Why? What's bad about handing out sweets in the street? Can't we show a little love in the world? The young woman who introduced herself as Jaz made me so happy that I photographed her for all the world to see.

When I met my friends I told them about my brief encounter, and their reaction stunned me. They made remarks like, "Mike, you can't accept sweets from strangers, they might be poisoned". That's a sad commentary on the world we live in. Is the world so evil that whenever we see a random act of kindness it's assumed to be something bad? I'm naive, I know I'm naive, but I don't want to be any other way.

It's not the first time in my life I've experienced a stranger handing out sweets. About 10 years ago there was an elderly Pakistani who used to stand outside his house on Coventry Road offering sweets to passers-by. When the weather was good he stood outside for hours. I asked him why he did it. He said that his brother used to hand out sweets to strangers. After his brother's death he decided to carry on the tradition. He added that by giving away sweets he could make people happy by doing something that cost him only a few pennies.

Now to the film itself. I was hesitant to go and see it after my fellow blogger, Emma Roberts, gave it such a bad review. I didn't find it quite as bad as she did, but it's not a film I can recommend.

Someone should ban Kristen Stewart from acting. She manages to sabotage whatever she appears in. If she were at least drop-dead gorgeous I could tolerate her, but she's average looking and an abysmal actress. She's incapable of showing the least emotion on screen. She's a female version of Keanu Reeves. I feel guilty for posting the picture above. It makes the film look so cool, and it makes Kristen look like a cool hippy chick. That's false advertising. The film isn't cool, and Kristen Stewart definitely isn't cool.

The film's plot is typical for high-tech spy thrillers. When Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) was 18 he enlisted into a secret CIA program to create super-soldiers. The project was abandoned, so his memory was wiped and he was sent to live in Liman, West Virginia. He works in a convenience store and he spends his spare time getting stoned with his girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart). When he attempts to leave the town a CIA executive, Adrian Yates (Topher Grace), decides to eliminate him by sending in a team of highly trained killers. Mike's former mentor at the CIA, Victoria Lasseter (Connie Briton), arrives first and re-activates his fighting abilities by saying a pre-programmed sentence to him. This doesn't bring back his memories, he still doesn't know who he is, but at least he now has the ability to defend himself.

The problem with the film is that it's in a grey zone between a serious action thriller and a comedy. If the comedy had been either eliminated or ramped up to the extreme it would have worked better. The main actors (Jesse, Kristen and Connie) play their roles with deadly seriousness. Topher Grace and most of the supporting actors use comical over-acting. There's no consistency. Then there's the love story. Why does Mike love Phoebe? What does he see in her? She really should have been played by a better actress.

I've recently been criticised for always writing good things about the worst of films. I don't deny this. Even when I see a film that I don't like I try to ask myself what's good about it. There must be something that makes any film worth seeing. In the case of "American Ultra" I don't have to look far. Even when she dresses plainly Connie Britton is a glamorous woman who can turn heads. Her acting talent is phenomenal, she's the centre of every scene she appears in. I'm also impressed by Jesse Eisenberg. I never thought of him as an action hero, but this film proves that he can adapt to roles untypical for him.

Of course, the best thing about the film was the sweet I was given on the way to the cinema. Thank you, Jaz.

Spider-Man 3 (5 Stars)

Earlier this year Empire Magazine held a poll. Its readers had to vote for the worst film ever. "Spider-Man 3" made it into the list. 49th position, if I remember rightly. Anyone who watches this film for the first time must have shook his head. How many films have been made in the history of cinema? Nobody knows for sure, but in 2008 alone more than 5000 films were made (the top three countries being India 1091, Nigeria 872 and America 485). "Spider-Man 3" has everything: action, romance, drama, suspense, top rate acting... so why do film fans consider it to be so bad?

Obviously the typical film fan hasn't seen many films. If he had a chance to sit down and watch 800 Nigerian films he might vote differently. The films in the list are all "popular films" that are well known. The sort that are shown on evening television. So there wasn't one Nigerian film in the list. But that still doesn't explain why people think so badly of it.

My only guess is that people were voting based on their expectations. The first two films had been so good that they expected the third film to top it. And it didn't. So they were disappointed and said it was bad. I agree that "Spider-Man 3" was the weakest film of the trilogy, but taken by itself it's still one of the best films ever made. I'm saying that as a naive fan, of course, but I dare any film "expert" to find faults in the cinematography, directing, production, or any other facet of the film.

I'm not saying it couldn't have been improved. Personally I think it should have been about 30 minutes longer. Eddie Brock's alter ego -- was the name Venom used in the film? -- was introduced too late in the film. Instead of moving straight from becoming Venom to teaming up with Sandman, he should have had a battle with Spider-Man by himself first. A battle in which Spider-Man was defeated, but managed to escape. That would have made the final battle against the united Venom and Sandman all the more terrifying. So an extra 30 minutes between the church scene and the meeting with Sandman would have been ideal. I'm a Spider-Man fan who knows who Venom is, but I can't help feeling that people who had never read the comics were confused by the new black-suited character with the big teeth. The extra 30 minutes would have explained it to them.

Nevertheless, this was a worthy end to the trilogy. Sam Raimi wanted to continue with "Spider-Man 4", but was fired over creative differences. That's sad. He was the perfect director for the character. Now there will be a new Spider-Man, a new director, and a new storyline that shows Peter Parker as a super-hero still going to school. Let's hope the next film succeeds.