Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Spider-Man 3

Grade: B

(PG-13; 140 minutes)

The humor is broader, the emotion more overwrought, the effects faster and fancier.

While “Spider-Man 3″ adds little to the legend developed in the first two blockbusters, it takes off on enough tangents to keep you munching your popcorn and not feeling gypped for almost 2-1/2 hours.

With three villains (four if you count that slinky space parasite), at least one identity crisis and a twisted romantic triangle, the summer’s first big action flick has nearly as many subplots as stunts.

It even has a few overlong, serious conversations for those who can time their restroom breaks.

In other words, this is just what you expect from a comic-book sequel.

Director Sam Raimi, reportedly operating on a record-setting $250-million budget, keeps the faith with fans. He preserves the Marvel Comic visual style and the internal conflicts that are mandatory in that universe. Neither heroes nor villains are pure good or evil. Spidey himself turns into something of a creep when an alien glob sneaks into his psyche and alter ego Peter Parker seems to think he’s Mr. Saturday Night Fever. (The nightclub scene with Parker showing off is funny but extraneous. A lesser director would have found that sequence exiled to the DVD outtakes section.)

Tobey Maguire doesn’t look all that excited to be playing Spidey/Parker a third time, but his dispirited attitude fits the character, whose world is all good when the story starts and then rapidly falls apart. Kirsten Dunst, as his unrequited love Mary Jane Watson, shares that sense of quiet resignation, although she can still unleash a scream when the occasion calls for it. (Is falling off a damaged high-rise considered an “occasion”?)

As in most superhero films, the bad guys provide the best moments. And this movie has strong actors in all three wicked spots.

James Franco returns as Harry Osborn, the heir to a sci-tech fortune who was Parker’s pal but who hates Spider-Man because Osborn’s dad was the Green Goblin in the first film and Spidey was there when GG died. (Willem Dafoe makes a cameo this time around.) And for a while, everything’s fine between Harry and Parker. As Parker says more than once during his adventures, ”It’s complicated.”

In a spectacular early chase sequence that might make you wish you’d taken Dramamine beforehand, Harry skims through streets and alleys on an accessorized, gravity-proof skateboard while Spidey slings webs from building to building to keep up. It’s the first of several times when our friendly neighborhood superhero takes a mighty pounding.

The next baddie is escaped convict Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church in a radical departure from his grand “Sideways” showing). This guy turns really bad when he’s accidentally “demolecularized” and turned into a huge, malevolent dust storm of vaguely humanoid shape — although he can fly away like a swirling cloud if need be. This grainy, grotesque monster is called Sandman, and he, too, causes massive problems for our hero.

Then there’s Venom, aka hot-shot press photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace, from “That ’70s Show” and “Traffic”). Grace’s not-so-subtle sarcasm fits the role perfectly: Eddie’s an aggressive, cocky sort whose personality worsens when … ah, you’ll guess it soon enough.

Cameo faves reappear. That would be “Spider-Man” creator Stan Lee with his usual single line, and Raimi buddy Bruce Campbell as a hilariously snooty maitre d’ with a wondrously mocking French accent. J.K. Simmons is back as abrasive but amusing newspaper editor Jonah Jameson and Bryce Dallas Howard joins the cast as a police chief’s daughter who adds an extra tangle or two to the ongoing romantic confusion.

For emotional content, we get those long chats between Parker and his beloved Aunt May (the magnificent Rosemary Harris), as well as the turbulent, on-and-off relationship between Parker-Spidey and Mary Jane Watson.

Still, the most vivid stars here are the special effects crews. Dizzying, dazzling digital aerobatics dominate to the point of sensory overload.

Could ”Spider-Man 3″ be too much of a good thing? Nah. Just make sure you have enough popcorn.

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