After watching Spiderman III over the weekend I was left with mixed feelings.

It is the first film that I have been eagerly awaiting for a long time and perhaps it was that expectation that left me feeling ever so slightly disappointed. My review contains spoilers so don’t read it if you don’t want to know what happens.

Firstly I have to say that the main two criticisms I have heard about this movie, namely it being too long and the story line being too complicated, are not opinions that I agree with. I didn’t feel myself getting tired and I didn’t find myself particularly lost as to what was going on.

My main criticism was some of the missing bits in the story. Firstly, where did the black goo come from that enhanced people’s aggression? It came down in a meteor. Was it a coincidence it landed near Peter Parker and followed him home or was it dropped and aimed at him? This parasitic creature seems to come looking for Peter Parker. I don’t know if this came from the comic book or whether I am rwading too much into it, but it seems to me like that deserves some more explanation.

Spidey ends up fighting fights two bad guys in this film. The first is Flint Marko. His becomes known as The Sandman after his DNA bonds with sand when he falls into a pit housing a scientific experiment. He also turns out to be the guy who killed uncle Ben in the first film.
The second bad guy is Venom. A rival photographer to Peter Parker, Eddie Brock, gets transformed into an evil black creature when the aforementioned black goo falls onto him after Spiderman forces it out of himself. I did note, however, that the name Venom wasn’t actually mentioned at all in the film.

There are some incredible fighting scenes in this film as you would expect, as well as some of the best computer animations I have ever seen in a movie. There are also some very funny scenes, as Peter Parker becomes cocky and aggressive after being consumed by the black goo.

The final battle scene is the other problem I had. It is such an anticlimax, especially when comapred to the scene with Harry Osborn fighting Spiderman. It turns out that Venom apparently can’t stand the chimes of a bell! Spiderman surrounds him with scaffloding poles and continuously hits them, creating a noise that drives Venom crazy. Spidey throws in a grenade and Venom is no more. And how does Spiderman offload The Sandman? Actually, he doesn’t. Sandman convinces Parker that killing uncle Ben was an accident. Parker forgives him and Sandman blows away into the night.

Considering the build up Venom got during the months before the film was released his appearance was almost a cameo. Venom certainly deserves his own film as Sandman would have been a more than adequate enemy for this one.

Overall, I thought it was a good film but just not quite as good as I wanted it to be.