Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Well, it ain't everyday you get to feel like a real pirate.

Well may I just say:

Yar.

I've gotten quite used to relying on my imagination to enrich any poor-quality film I can see, akin to how one used their mind to visualize a story, this one, I use my mind to imagine how it would look with better quality (and, in this case, a small part of the screen blacked out by a shoulder.)

So with absolutely no hesitation and with great trepidation, I quickly and arduously downloaded a movie I had little interest in seeing: Spider-Man 3.

And I agree with some of the advanced buzz that it doesn't seem to have the spectacle of the first film, much less the glorious second installment, an inordinate amount of time seems to have been spent on "relationship issues" and petty high-school bullshit rather than focusing on actual crime fighting and real human interaction (neither villain gets all that much screentime until very late in the film, and even then, it's mostly anticlimatic (in a few decisive scenes, there's a sense of comic relief before there's been enough action to demand relief, you're giggling when you should be enthralled, and that doesn't bode well for the film...), in addition to much of the last sequence reeking of computer-generation...

Tobey Maguire is still a lame sissy Peter Parker (which I guess is what Parker's supposed to be, but it's still annoying how clueless and nerdy he seems (and don't even get me started on Emo-Peter or his pathetic attempt to emote when Mary Jane breaks up with him)), Kirsten Dunst is still a generic damsel-in-distress comic book love interest, Thomas Haden Church is given possibly eight words total, and is staggeringly underused, computer or not (although Maguire and Church's first fight scene is easily the coolest thing in the film)...the only person who gives a half-decent and noteworthy performance was Topher Grace, who was perfectly cast as a smarmy asshole who thinks he's smarter than everyone around him, a role which Grace has done before and can play pitch-perfect.The rest of the cast was like the film: Solid, but unremarkable entertainment.

If you're a Spider-Man fan, I would definitely see it regardless, but I don't think this will hold as much weight with casual movie fans as the first or definitely the second.

My recommendation? Save your hard-earned dollars for that other pirate coming up soon.

7/10, #6 of my now-Nine of 2007.