Peter Parker may be past growing pains, but his film franchise is beginning to suffer them. Both overloaded and undernourished, Spider-Man 3 still manages plenty of crackling, comic-book excitement, yet it’s too cumbersome to deliver the same depth as its predecessors. There are some interesting touches of guilt and regret involving the new villain, Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), whose mournful transformation scene is the sort of poignant, resonant image every superior super-hero movie needs. Also joining the series are Topher Grace as the anti-Spider-Man, Venom, and Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacy, a classmate of Peter’s who gets cozy with his masked alter ego. From director Sam Raimi.
