Analyzing Robert Ebert's review of "Spiderman 3"

I saw Spiderman 3 a while ago, after it was released on DVD. My experience can be summed up in one word-underwhelming. Even though I was not, and still am not, experienced enough to give a credible review to a film, I didn't have to be to notice how the movie seemingly looped between meaningless fight scenes, the romance between Marie Jane and Peter Parker, and odd messages of "redemption." I looked at Robert Ebert's review to see if he could change my mind, or indeed, thought differently at all. However, I was glad to see Robert shared my feelings, specifically with the "baddies."

"Superhero movies and Bond movies live and die by their villains. Spidey No. 2 had the superb Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), who is right up there with Goldfinger and the Joker in the Supervillain Hall of Infamy. He had a personality. In Spidey No. 3 we have too many villains, too little infamy."

He goes on to speak with disdain of the Sandman, with all the character depth of a brick, (honestly, he's remorseful that he killed Uncle Ben, he escaped from prison, and now he has super powers, and an attachment to his daughter. It really never goes any further then that), the Green Goblin, or rather Green Goblin 2.0, who, although having slightly more character then the sandman, still is rather flat, and the black organism that creates "Venom" who truly has no character at all beyond "infect Spidey, once Spidey gets rid of me, infect his rival photographer and help him kill Spidey."

Robert also brings up the interesting point, near the end of the review, that the smae person who directed "Spiderman 2" a movie of considerable merit, also directed the train wreck that is "Spiderman 3." He goes on to list several interesting reasons for the wreck...perhaps the director (Sam Raimi) was paralyzed by the budget? In all honesty, I think I agree with his idea that the series may have grown too heavy on its feet. After all, as he says,

"How many times can we see essentially the same romantic scenario repeated? How much dangling in the air can one girl do?"

Finally, Robert points out plot holes that I hadn't noticed, but which are extremely troubling. The worst one was this;

"We know that Spider-Man's powers do not reside in his red suit, which lies in a suitcase under his bed. So how do fake Spideys like Venom gain their powers when they are covered with the black substance? And how does a microorganism from outer space know how to replicate the intricate patternwork of the Spidey costume, right down to the chest decoration? And to what purpose from an evolutionary point of view? And what good luck that the microorganism gets Peter's rival photographer, Eddie Grace, to infect, so that he becomes Venom! And how does Eddie know who he has become?"

How indeed? The alien, for all intents and purposes, is only an alien, be it parasitic or not. How does it grant Spiderman's powers to Eddie Grace (Peter's rival photographer)? An argument could perhaps be made that it copied Spidey's powers from the times that it was infecting Peter himself, but if so, how did it do that? And if it did, why does it need to infect anybody? It might just be powerful enough on its own. There is no backstory to explain any of this, leaving it up to the viewer to draw his own conclusions about nearly everything that is shown. In short, Spiderman 3 is an absolute travesty, and I can not in good faith reccomend it to anyone, friend or foe. Go watch Spiderman 2 again-at least in that movie, you got more backstory then a five second scene and/or flashback.

All quotes in this post came from the Spiderman 3 section of http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/greatmovies