Spider-Man 3 A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - PG-13 It's 2:19 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

In Spider-Man 3 the cast of characters we have come to know and love (or hate) are back. Peter (Tobey Maguire) is still in love with M.J., and I don’t mean Michael Jordan. Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) is still pursuing her Broadway career, even getting her big break. Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) still has all of the wisdom of a woman who was in a marriage we don’t usually find anymore, sadly cut short when the good Uncle Ben got murdered in Spidey 1 (he’s actually back in some flash-backs), and Harry Osborn (James Franco) is still pissed thinking Peter killed his dad, looking for revenge.

Peter is in heaven because New York loves Spider-Man, but early on in the film he’s got to confront Harry who has taken the role of New Goblin, actually a little more kick-ass than his dad. But as things seem to be going great for Peter, little does he know the whirlwind that is coming. Peter, wrapped up in celebrity, ignores Mary Jane in her time of need. He’s also fighting for his job at the newspaper (where J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) is in ever better form than the previous films) because Eddie (Topher Grace) thinks he is the better photographer. Then Peter gets infected by an alien symbiote turning Peter into a, well, vengeful Spidey and obnoxious nerd. In the meantime Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church), who was actually the triggerman that offed Uncle Ben, well he’s been transformed into a dude made of sand, a.k.a. Sandman, wreaking havoc on the City throughout the entire film.

Of course Peter figures out how to get rid of the symbiote that is wrecking his life, but as symbiotes go they look for another host, and who better than the newly life-wrecked Eddie, turning him into Venom. Venom has a plan for the end of Spider-Man, and to attempt it teams up with Sandman for the climactic ending where, of course, Mary Jane is left dangling from dizzying heights and Spidey must save her, but only if he gets some help.

Alright, fine, I admit my synopsis of the story isn’t the greatest, and I apologize for that, but I’m trying to give you some parts of the story without ruining too much of the story so I suppose I’ll just get to whether "Spider-Man 3" is any good. It is. Is it as good as "Spider-Man" or "Spider-Man 2?" I’d say it’s on par, with things that are better than both films but some parts that drag it down a bit.

The love story between Peter and Mary Jane is still on-going, with Mary Jane causing a lot of the problems mostly because she can’t tell Peter the truth while Peter is doing his best to relate to her without her full story. Sometimes it gets a little boring because it’s the same old story, but we know the necessity of it because otherwise who would Spider-Man be rescuing at the end of the movie?

As far as the villains, Doc Ock is still my favorite from #2 maybe because he reminds me of Darth Vader, where even though, at the time, he’s a bad buy, but deep inside you know there is good in him and he will help set things right. In terms of effects, though, Venom and Sandman kick total butt, and the New Goblin has advanced nicely in terms of coolness.

And finally, as far as the movie as a whole, I have to say there were a few times that it dragged, and although some people are bitching and moaning about Kirsten Dunst’s singing scenes, I found the one scene perfectly appropriate, but in my director’s cut the second one wouldn’t have happened. Also, I did not recognize her, but Bryce Dallas Howard (you might remember her as the blind girl in "The Village") was hotter and played her role as Gwen Stacey nicely. Tobey Maguire, though, has really come into his own in the acting category, shifting nicely from the "rock-star" Spider-Man, to the Peter that gets his heart broken, to the Peter that turns into a nerd trying to act cool, to the Peter that learns his lesson, and finally back to just being Spider-Man.

The movie is as solid as the first "Spider-Man," though not as great as "Spider-Man 2," but if you liked either of them you will probably like "Spider-Man 3" as well. It’s 4 ½ stars out of 5 from me.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!