Spider-Man 3: in Digital Projection

An overlong, visually incoherent, mean-spirited and often just plain awful Spider-Man 3. Full Review

Solidly entertaining and possesses dazzling special effects, but it falls short of the near-perfection of the Spidey sequel. Full Review

There are plenty of pleasures here: The slow birth of the Sandman from a heap of supercharged sand crystals (or something) is a marvel of digital animation, and the chemistry between Dunst and Maguire feels like the dynamic of a real couple, full of subtle shifts and eloquent silences. Full Review

Spider-Man and the first sequel were breezy adventures - easy and fun to sit through. Spider-Man 3 is a chore. The effective moments require a lot patience to uncover and some of what has to be shifted to get to them is not worth the effort. People love trilogies because it's said that good things come in threes, but this series would have looked better and felt more satisfying had the filmmakers stopped at two. Full Review

Will the extremely extravagant special effects prove sufficient to sustain the picture? Surely they will, this time. Still, there's a sense of fatigue in the scenes that don't involve high-tensile webs and high-tension suspense. Full Review