Spider-Man 3 Critic Reviews

The wow factor works overtime with state-of-the-art effects sequences that often are as beautiful as they are astonishing.Read the full review

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

There are delicious bits aplenty in Spider-Man 3 for those who care to notice.Read the full review

Raimi, who shares script credit with his brother Ivan and Alvin Sargent, strikes an exquisite balance between pop and woe, drama and whooshing adventure.Read the 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.Read the full review

So Spider-Man 3's action is superb and its theme fairly weighty. Then why does it feel a letdown from its predecessor? Nearly all the blame rests with director Sam Raimi, who's taken the success of some light slapstick moments in Spider-Man 2 as a cue to get even sillier.Read the full review

Spider-Man 3 has terrific moments, but after the danger and majesty and romantic brio of "Spider-Man 2," those adrenalized rooftop ballets feel, more than ever, like sequences.Read the 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.Read the full review

Spider-Man 3 is, in short, a mess. Too many villains, too many pale plot strands, too many romantic misunderstandings, too many conversations, too many street crowds looking high into the air and shouting "oooh!" this way, then swiveling and shouting "aaah!" that way.Read the full review