The last day of Golden Week, I went to see Spider-Man 3 with my friend. I see very few movies in Japan, in fact, this was only my second in a year. I’ve always been a fan of the Spider-Man series, and really liked the first and second movies. The first is better than the second, in my opinion, and was looking forward to the third.

Sadly, I did not really like Spider-Man 3. What bothered me most about it is that the move lacked any subtlety at all. One of the main themes, Peter Parker struggling with his dark side as brought out by the Venom suit, was so heavy-handed and yet poorly done: all his “evil” moves were over the top, with a comical song-and-dance routine, and to me as a spectator, I didn’t see any real conflict there at all. It all seemed forced and out of character. I really think that all could have been done much better.

That same criticism could be applied to the two main villains in the film as well.

Still, I really shouldn’t complain: can one really expect subtlety from Hollywood films? I don’t think so. But I expected more of Sam Raimi, especially because I think Spider-Man 1 did such a nice job. Perhaps it just comes down to money: when the studios put more and more money into a project, you should expect more and more a lowest-common-denominator result.