Spider Man 3... and other icky goop

Went to see the 3rrd installment in Sam Rami's Spidey sequence last weekend and walked away as un-enthused as I expected. There were parts of the movie that worked really well but all told it's a bloated, confusing mess. Which is a crying shame, because the 2nd movie made it look like Rami knew how to beat the curse of the bloated super-sequel.

Spider Man stories have two plot threads - the villain and Peter's personal life - and draw their motive force from the tension of trying to balance his responsibility between the two. Hollywood types have their usual belief that this isn't enough, but Rami beat that back in the 2nd movie by devoting a lot of time and care to Dr. Octopus, letting Alfred Molina infuse the character with a tragic nobility. They could also do it by, ya'know, making a shorter movie (what happened to 90 minute running times? This one ran 2 houurs, 20 minutes). Instead this time around they had the personal life and THREE villains, one of whom, Venom, is about as interesting as carpet lint for all of his bygone popularity.

They tried to make you care about Sandman the way they succeeded with Doc Ock, but they never gave Mark Hayden Church the time he needed to do that. Also, they shoved in the most boring predictable Hollywood super-hero movie cliché ever to give Peter additional reasons to fight the villain - as if he needed them. I wonder, when Fantastic Four 2 comes out will we learn that Silver Surfer killed Johnny and Sues father, just to get that all important 'avenging your dad' element? (That would be silly, because everyone knows the Skrulls killed Johnny and Sue's dad. . . )

So what should they have done?

( Here's my capsle plot idea. File it under 'too late now' )