In the third installment of the Spider-Man saga, we find Peter Parker wrestle with not one, not two... not even three villains.  He takes on a staggering four antagonists in a movie that drags on about twenty minutes past where it organically should have ended.



Let me preface this to say that I still enjoyed the movie as a whole.  I left the theater with a bit of a "eh" feeling, but the time I spent with characters I've grown to love wasn't wasted.



I just feel that it could have been so much more.



The problem is that the writers tackled far too many subplots to keep the main storyline vibrant and interesting.  It was a juggling act with about fifteen balls in the air, so each missed note was about as strident as missing a chord on Guitar Hero II.



Here's what I liked:



I liked Harry's evolution as the New Goblin and his path to figuring out who he really was.  I'm not convinced this was true to the original storyline, but I have yet to grill my fanboy husband on the particulars.  I really feel this is the subplot they should have stuck to.  Unlike Venom and Sandman, the dramtic conflict between Peter and Harry, Spidey and NG had already been prefaced in the earlier movies. 



This is the conflict we cared about.



Bruce Campbell as a snooty French maitre d', what's not to like?



J Jonah Jameson - brilliant comic relief as always. 



The effects of Spidey toying with his darker side - mid street "Stayin Alive" jig totally aside.



Which brings me to what I didn't like....



Action sequences were entirely too disjointed.  They went by so fast it was disconcerting to try and keep up with the details of the fight.  Unlike the train scene in Spidey 2, they didn't take their time to build the suspense and the tension. 



It was just wham, bam thank you ma'am, turning the "wow" factor into a huge "WTF?".



Same principle applies to the rushed dramatic tension of the four antagonists. You can't spend two whole movies building up a showdown between two characters that essentially gets overshadowed by two new conflicts  we're not near as invested in or care about.



Like the introduction of Gwen Stacy.  Seriously.  Why?



The drama was way too amplified for a summer super hero flick.  Spidey cries not once, not twice but almost nonstop as the movie attempts to wind its way toward it's climatic moment.



Which was... never.



Maybe that's why so many viewers walked away from the movie unsatisfied.  Even with the "victory" Spidey managed to pull out of his red and blue behind, it was so understated that we, as an audience, were cheated from our true resolution.



Plus it came at a huge price I know I wasn't ready to pay. 



Still a fan of Spidey, still a fan of this franchise. 



But on the whole? 



Meh.



Bring on Pirates.