Spider-Man 3 **** (2007, Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Topher Grace, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rosemary Harris, J K Simmons, James Cromwell) – Classic Movie Review 1106

The final film in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy cost a whopping $258million and was the most expensive film of all time at release but it became the most financially successful film in the series worldwide. It’s Marvel’s third most financially successful film after The Avengers and Iron Man 3, and Sony’s second highest-grossing film behind Skyfall. It’s ironic then that it terminated the first run of Spider-Man movies.

That’s down to disagreements between Sony and Raimi, which led him to quit as director of Spider-Man 4 and to Sony cancelling the film. Raimi purportedly went through four versions of the script with different screenwriters and still ‘hated it’. He thought he couldn’t meet the planned May 6 2011 release date while at the same time keeping the film’s creativity. So that was that. A reboot of the trilogy was released five years later in 2012 as The Amazing Spider-Man in different hands and with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. Now this is a shame.

Tobey Maguire stars for the last time as an ideal Peter Parker, who finds he has become a cultural phenomenon as Spider-Man, while Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) continues her Broadway career. Harry Osborn (James Franco) still seeks vengeance against Peter for his father’s death and has taken up his dad’s persona as The New Goblin. And an escaped Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) falls into a particle accelerator and is transformed into the shape-shifting sand manipulator Sandman.

And then unfortunately an extra-terrestrial symbiote crashes to Earth and bonds with Peter, influencing his behaviour for the worse, so now there’s good and bad (black-suited) Spidey. When Peter abandons the symbiote, it finds refuge in rival photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), causing Peter to face his greatest challenge when Brock becomes the movie’s third villain, Venom.

With plenty of action, lots of visual style, astounding visual effects, a glorious production and an insanely busy plot, Spider-Man 3 is highly entertaining. But it’s a little bit jittery, restless and messy this time and simply not as quite polished or satisfying as its predecessors.

It received mixed reviews from the critics, in contrast to the highly positive reviews for the first two films. And it won no awards either. But the public adored it and it earned $336million in North America and $554million in other countries.

Everyone looked forward to Spider-Man 4 and wanted the Raimi-Maguire series to continue, so its demise must be greatly lamented. Alas Raimi and the cast were dumped and the film was rebooted as The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012, with Andrew Garfield, followed by a sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, in 2014.

On June 23 2015, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios announced they have cast British actor Tom Holland as the new Spider-Man in a new reboot. The 19-year-old, who acted in The Impossible (2012) and How I Live Now (2013), will take over from Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker for release in cinemas in IMAX and 3D on July 28 2017. Holland will first appear in Captain America: Civil War to introduce him into the Marvel film universe.

Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee has a cameo in Spider-Man 3 as a man who, after reading a news bulletin along with Peter, tells him: ‘You know, I guess one person can make a difference’, followed by his catchphrase ‘Nuff said.’

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(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1106 derekwinnert.com

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/

Amputee boxer Baxter Humby, as Spider-Man, throws a computer-generated punch through the chest of Sandman (Thomas Haden Church).

Concept art of the Venom suit, which possesses a webbing motif, unlike in the comics, to show the symbiote’s control and represent the character as a twisted foil to Spider-Man.

Tobey Maguire greets fans at the premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 30 2007 in Queens, New York.