It is a testament to Sam Raimi and his collaborators that the Spider-man series did not run out of material after a few installments, like the Batman and Superman movies did. Although the end of the film leaves room for another adventure, I think that the series should retire after the third installment- all the loose ends with the characters are tied up, and any subsequent film would probably be just a long wrestling match through the skies of New York.
All three films have the same pluses and minuses. On the plus side, there is a sympathetic and atypical hero in Toby Maguire's Peter Parker, who, unlike Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, is close to an average guy. There is also the epic story the Osborn family, with both father and son being infected by mental illness, revenge, but ultimately reaching and a kind of redemption. The drawbacks, however, are what keep the series from being a great superhero film, like Donner's Superman or Mark Steven Johnson's Daredevil. Many of the character scenes are melodramatic and rather silly, at times verging on soap opera. During a particularly painful scene in 3, I wondered whether I was watching a superhero movie or an episode of Dawson's Creek. And none of the films have very convincing special effects- the CGI looks fake, and that prevents their from being any real suspense through the endless shots of Spider-Man falling and climbing skyscrapers.
Part Three is never boring, but much of the beginning is not going to leave you biting your nails in anticipation either. A new villain played by Thomas Hayden Church is introduced, who due to a freak accident has the power to change himself into sand, but still cares about his sick daughter. It might be moving if it wasn't so ridiculous. The other plotlines involves the increasingly arrogant Parker as he stupidly and unintentionally offends his girlfriend, the beautiful Mary Jane (Kristen Dunst). I saw the movie with K.R. Gorlitz, and she felt that these were evocative of a real relationship, but I disagree. The problem is that Parker is forced to act out of character – he is such a nice guy that he probably wouldn't have offended Mary Jane in the first place, or once he does, he should know that it would probably help to apologize.
But then a strange thing happens. Peter gets infected by some kind of weird black thing that makes him, for all intents and purposes, go over to the dark side. Unlike the Star Wars series, I felt that this concept was prevented in a much deeper way. We have all gotten angry when we know he shouldn't, just because it feels good, and this movie made me think about that. If we had the power to get what we wanted at any time, with no consequences, wouldn't we sometimes beat up that guy who annoys us? And then an even stranger thing happened- I began to care about the characters, and the movie, especially the tormented Harry Osborn (James Franco), who is capable of such goodness, and such evil. By the end, I had watched a rather shallow film grow into something rather evocative, and I wanted to watch all three films again to get the full arc of the Osborn family.
The movie still isn't perfect (it certainly did not deserve to break the one day record it did), but is a good way to bring closure to the series, which I hope it does. All three of Spider-man films are good to almost great, and it would be shame for the series to go downhill with unnecessary future installments. The story has ended here, and I fear a Spider-man 4 wouldn't even be interesting.
Spider-Man 3 (2007)