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Saw Spiderman 3 on Saturday (Or Spider-Man, as the posters state), and here's my big chance to become a cliche of an egocentric movie reviewer who hates everything about modern cinema. Well I wouldn't complain too much, especially when your job is basically watching movies every day of the week. Gotta love that popcorn.

I'm sure most people will know the storyline by now, but if you don't, the opening credits provide a nice little recap of the events of the past two installments. It goes on for quite a while, as there is quite a bit to cover. Unfortunately, the same is very true in regards to the film itself. It wasn't quite Lord of the Rings long, but it still managed to clock in at around two hours. That's not to say it was a complete waste of time. There is plenty of action throughout, and it certainly delivers when the time to kick arse arrives.

The battle between the two sides of Spidey's personality clash with the introduction of the symbiont Venom, who just manages to crash in meteor form in a park only metres away from where our hero is. This starts of a chain of coincidence after coincidence, and after a while you wonder when Peter is going to stumble upon the script for Spiderman 4 along with a big bag of cash. (You all know it's gonna happen, like it or not...)

The scene where Spiderman manages to expel Venom, where his arch rival photographer Eddie Brock (I obviously don't know/care enough about the subject matter, I had to IMDB the character's name) just happens to be praying downstairs for God to strike down Peter Parker with his Divine Wrath is just a bit too much for my liking. Sure, it moves the film along nicely, but at the cost of plausibility. And don't get me started on how Sandman, on the run from the cops, manages to hide in a conveniently parked truck full of sand which not only hides him, but makes him infinitely stronger. Curse that sandy truck!

I did kinda feel sorry for Kirsten Dunst in that the script writers gave her so little to do. The range of emotions required of her in this installment range from jealousy to irrationally annoying whinging, to the inevitable damsel in distress (geez, you think she'd be used to being in mortal danger by now, it happens in each freaking film), resulting in her being nothing more than a minor supporting act. It mustn't be too bad I suppose, considering she does get paid a lot to do such things.

However, it's not all doom and gloom for Spiderman. Most people who saw the film would have hated this, but I happened to love the emo dancing Peter Parker. It may be a pointless waste of five minutes that would normally be left on the cutting room floor, but the complete cheesiness of the entire thing made it the highlight for me. Why he is dressed in black with such an emo looking hairstyle is beyond me, I mean the symbiont is meant to amplify confidence among other things. Everyone knows the generalised image of emo culture is the downtrodden, bleakened outlook on society and life... OK, maybe that's a bit unfair, but if A Current Affair says it to be true, then who am I to argue?

All in all, the film managed to be satisfying, regardless of how long it was. You certainly can't complain when you get more cinema time for the price of admission, and there are definitely longer more tedious flicks out there that I could be avoiding. The action scenes are excellent, which goes without saying. The tag team battle is fun to watch, though it takes a hell of a while to get to that point. If I were to give my pretend professional film reviewer's rating out of 5, I would have to give it a solid 3.5/5.0... it's pretty good, but not really as deep as the previous two (If you want an in depth analysis, you're better off going elsewhere... you won't find the meaning of life reading this blog. If you do though, please let me know, it would be much appreciated). It would have been 3.0 stars, but the dancing pushes it up 0.5... hardly the sign of a professional reviewer...