"Spider-Man 3" an astonishing crowd pleaser

By Michael Rechtshaffen

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Left dangling for three years, arachnophiles everywhere finally have cause to celebrate.

The biggest (with a production budget due north of $250 million) and longest (clocking in at 139 minutes) and quite possibly the capper of a trilogy featuring the current talent lineup, "Spider-Man 3" has done it again.

Certain to please the geek squad by remaining ever true to its comic book roots while retaining that satisfying emotional core that has registered with equal numbers of female fans, "Spidey 3" has all its demographic bases covered.

And while the picture as a contained whole may fall an itsy-bitsy short of the personal best set by Sam Raimi's 2004 edition, the wow factor works overtime with state-of-the-art effects sequences that are often as beautiful as they are astonishing.

The Columbia Pictures blockbuster, which received its world premiere on May 4 in Tokyo, should spin a worldwide web that should build substantially on the $1.6 billion already brought in by the first two installments.

Fittingly for a Marvel comic book character who seems to be even more tormented by issues of duality than his super-powered colleagues, "Spider-Man 3" introduces not one but two formidable foes determined to take the web-slinger down.

First there's Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), an escaped con who becomes better known as Sandman after his DNA bonds with sand particles when he inadvertently gets caught in the middle of a molecular fusion experiment.

Then there's Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), Peter Parker's photo-snapping rival at the Daily Bugle who is transformed into the extremely nasty Venom after being enveloped in that black goop from another galaxy that temporarily brings out Parker's own darker impulses.

That's in addition to the love-hate relationship Pete already has with Harry Osborn (James Franco), who's very much in the latter mode at the beginning of the picture, determined to make Parker pay for his father's (aka Green Goblin) death.

But Parker also is preoccupied with his relationship with longtime girlfriend Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). Things have hit a bit of a rocky patch as Mary Jane's acting career suffers a serious setback at the same time that Spider-Man's public adoration is at an all-time high.

Further complicating his marriage proposal plans is the appearance of Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), the daughter of a police captain (James Cromwell) and a classmate of Parker's (not to mention object of Eddie Brock's desires) whose public crush on Spider-Man has been duly noted by Mary Jane.

'Tis a very tangled web of relationships, indeed, and things only become more enmeshed when Marko is found to be implicated in the death of Parker's Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson).

Keeping them all neatly interconnected is the ambitious script by Raimi and his brother Ivan Raimi, along with Alvin Sargent, who also helped elevate "Spider-Man 2."

While there are times the film's underlying theme of the power of forgiveness isn't always quite as subtle as it could be, it nevertheless serves as an effective anchor for the performers.

That aforementioned sinister substance that turns Spidey's suit a sleek, inky black, also affords Maguire the opportunity to have a little fun getting in touch with his dark side, even when the bad-boy makeover -- with his slicked-forward bangs and finger-popping attitude -- reminds one of a "Reefer Madness" fiend or, say, Robert Downey Jr. in "Less Than Zero."