Enter Sandman

" Yet "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2" this is not.
This saga's strength, going back to the original comic books, was the way its hero's extraordinary situation mirrored that of everyday adolescence.
Now that Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has moved on to adult issues - career choices, the prospect of marriage to Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) - that natural symbiosis has been replaced by a scrambling for thematic depth.

On a practical level, the movie is too cumbersome to deliver much depth. Added to the existing love triangle of Peter, Mary Jane and Peter's friend/nemesis Harry Osborn (James Franco) is Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), a classmate of Peter's who gets cozy with his masked alter ego.
Then there are the two new villains: Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), a rival photographer of Peter's who turns into the anti-Spider-Man Venom when he's empowered by some alien goo; and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), a guilt-ridden escaped convict who wanders into a scientific experiment that transforms his body into sand.

With so many characters to juggle, returning director Sam Raimi and his team of screenwriters struggle to supply the story with the emotional girding it requires. They mostly rely on talky, expository scenes, when the best super-hero movies allow the emotion to arise from the iconic imagery.
That does occasionally happen in "Spider-Man 3," mainly whenever Church is on the screen.

The Oscar nominee for "Sideways" - and veteran of television's "Wings" - has exaggerated comic-book features (protruding ears, a block-shaped body), yet he still invests Sandman, aka Flint Marko, with more humanity than any other character on the screen.
Haunted by the killing that sent him to prison, Marko escapes to steal money for an operation that his sick daughter desperately needs. His transformation scene, when he struggles to grasp a locket his daughter gave him while his fingers dissolve into tiny pebbles, is the sort of poignant, resonant image every superior super-hero movie needs.

Marko straddles the line between hero and villain, and for a time during the movie so does Spider-Man. That goo also finds its way onto Peter, and it enhances his capacity for aggression and vengeance to such a degree that he's inspired to briefly don a new black suit.
It's here that "Spider-Man 3" finally hits on something interesting, and it ties into Marko's conflicted conscience.

Death has always been a messy thing in the "Spider-Man" movies - even villains are dispatched mournfully, not victoriously - and now Peter finds his hands dirtier than ever. His new powers make him stronger, but at what cost?
Raimi also makes room for his signature light touch, whether it is the very funny, "Saturday Night Fever" jaunt the newly confident Peter takes down a New York City street or the slap-stick cameo as a French maitre d' by Bruce Campbell, the star of Raimi's "Evil Dead" series.

Scenes such as these give "Spider-Man 3" a looseness that is crucial. Otherwise, the picture would be another lumbering, big-budget behemoth, much like Sandman in the overblown climax.
That climax leaves the series at a crucial point.

Neither Raimi nor his cast are committed to return for a fourth installment, and without them the franchise likely will lose what soul it still has.
Things are sometimes awkward in "Spider-Man 3," which suggests that puberty for the series could be downright ugly.
Read more by Josh Larsen at LarsenOnFilm.

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