Spiderman 3 - STRICTLY under PG-13 ... or.. wait a minute !

The promos of the movie hovered around 'The greatest battle is the battle within', the 'dark side of the good' theme. The expectation was Spidey wud be shown fending off emotional battle between the power and morals, remember 'with greater power comes ... ' , between selfishness and righteousness. The movie did justice to this storyline, but only slightly, and i am rather disappointed.

This 3rd edition has far more action sequences (mostly digital than real) than its predecessors. The sandman is brilliantly made. All the actors have done well, photography is excellent. It also has perky humor sprinkled loosely causing occasional rounds of laughter. But the story or the lack of a contiguous storyline makes it a lackluster movie (IMO).

The first impession is they tried to squeeze too many movies into one. There could hv been a movie on Venom, one dedicated to sandman and one solely on the 'battle within'. That would give them a better option of concentrating on the theme, one at a time. Sandwiching everything has made a big mess made even worse by the transformations of Harry. Bad-good-bad-good wot !!!!!!!! Today morning i feel Harry should punish spidey for his father's death, but while i go to bed at night i feel.. nay .. Harry's a good boy, Peter's best friend, so i wud wipe out his 'short term memory' till the point of his father's death. But i get a dream in which a fairy tells me, oh then MJ might really start to like him, makes me sweat in my dreams so next morning, i borrow Mr Goblin from hell and scratch Harry's medulla oblongata (or wotever is required) and he's back as new Goblin. Then our hero in black beats him hands down, and i felt ok, one prong of the mess got eliminated. But no !!!! he isnt done yet, you hv to still see his brighter n better side. Come'on !! Are we showing battles-within of spiderman or Harry, give me a break !

The greatest battle shown is actually between the sandman and venom pact v/s our 'awakened' itsybitsy spidey. They are far superior as a team for our superhero and he wud hv been dead (yes, that's what is shown) had it not been for his last moment ally. Whereas he is able to conquer his 'inner battle' all by himself, although he becomes rude and hurts loved ones, matter is not totally out of hands like he going berserk punishing innocents or destroying public property. He did try to avenge his grandfather's death in the first part without needing any black suit to 'amplify' his darker side so it's ridiculous to say it's that black suit that triggered everything !!

He is even shown selfish, only concerned about his iconic image, kissing his chick classmate in front of a million flashing cameras without any 'black infection' and that too when his sweetheart MJ is in emotinal turmoil, desparately in need of moral support of her superhero boyfriend. He is also gotten into his public image so much that he's become shallow to notice her tears and provide her any sort of strong hand.

It does try to plug in some loop holes of its predecessors, but what about the plenty of cliche'd scenes in its own?
The news reporter in the final showdown describing the events and 'what might be the end of ...' are utter platitude. Peter losing the staff job to Eddie Brock at Daily Bugle was nonsensical. The hundreds of people flocking to see the 'showdown' between venom + sandman v/s spiderman and cheering for their hero lack any sort of originality, i felt like i am watching that scene 100th time on the big screen.
Imagine this.
The great Mr Peter Parker has invited his GF to a plush restaurant in NYC, which even his GF knows he can't afford. An exquisite dining place, with possibly a dress code, where they can play violin on demand for that special moment where Mr Hero wud propose Ms Beauty. And just before he cud take a step towards his 'all-movie-long-stretched-proposal', his chick classmate pops up on the screen out of nowhere spilling utterly unnecessary college-lab-practicals-her-Parker beans !! Assume she is utterly dumb (hang on .. she is shown to be brilliant answering some geeky question earlier), but what has she been doing in that restaurant ? She isnt shown to be with anyone. Not even her high ranked father or her jobseeking (&utterly boring) boyfriend. Was she just passing by and checked in the restaurant to answer nature's call and when she saw Peter n MJ she thought hang on let me spoil their relationship for a change? or was she hired by Harry for this cameo in restaurant? It's not a coffee joint or a snack bar where college buddies bump into each other. It's an upstate and elegent dining place.

The black entity from space needs a host to bond. It will amplify the host's powers, at the same time bring about their darker side. Fine. It makes the already powerful Spidey mightier but also brutal. Now this photographer Eddie Brock, is neither powerful nor geeky, kind of a 'normal human being' who thinks Peter as his adversary, indicating he has his dark side already turned on. But yet, after infected by the black tissue, he turns into venom, who can mirror all the super-human talents of our spidey w/o needing any spider. So this alien entity can turn anything into whatever it feels like. And you know what, it is allergic to the sound of church bell (remember Mars attacks :))))) ).

Good for kids to see their spidey kicking a** of bad guys again and sure they wont care whether he is in red-n-blue or jet black, good or evil as long as they see him punishing those villains nor if the storyline makes any sense. But they may not like to see him tied up helplessly needing someone to sacrifice their life to save him.
I won't give this any 8 out of 10. It's about 6.5 to 7 and i am being lenient.