Three out of Five stars
Running time: 140 mins

The third instalment in the Spider-franchise delivers plenty of action but the overcrowded plot fails to achieve any real depth and the end result is disappointing.

What's it all about?
Spider-Man 3 sees Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) planning to propose to Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), until a strange alien symbiote latches onto him and begins changing his personality. At the same time, Harry Osborn (James Franco) blames Spider-Man for the death of his father and comes after Peter as the new Goblin.

As if that wasn't bad enough, an escaped convict (Thomas Haden Church) is transformed into the Sandman and turns out to have a connection to Uncle Ben's death. And secondly, Peter's rival at the Daily Bugle (Topher Grace) bonds with the rejected alien symbiote and becomes the terrifying creature known as Venom, hell bent on destroying Spider-Man.

The Good
Maguire has a lot of fun playing with Spider-Man's dark side, but he nails the emotional side of the character too. Dunst is the weakest link again performance-wise, but she's surrounded by a terrific supporting cast that includes J.K. Simmons as J.J. Jameson, Bruce Campbell (in a hilarious cameo as a French waiter) and Bryce Dallas Howard, who's delightful but underused as Peter's cute classmate, Gwen Stacey.

The effects and the fight scenes are good, but there's nothing in Spider-Man 3 that compares to the subway train fight in Spider-Man 2. Similarly, the first Goblin fight is too fast, making it difficult to tell what's going on.

The Bad
The problem with the film is that the plot is too overcrowded with villains, meaning that neither the Sandman nor Venom receive the attention they deserve. You can tell that a large amount of the story has been left on the cutting room floor.

Worth seeing?
The effects are amazing and fans will enjoy the references to the comics, but the film is something of a disappointment overall because it tries to do too much.