I've just had the grave misfortune of watching Spiderman 3. Self inflicted I know, but I just wanted a piece of light entertainment. Hey, the first couple of films passed the acceptability test, so why did the third have appalling dialog, irrelevant scenes, and convoluted storyline with insipid set pieces? Perhaps the protagonists character arc that started at boring geek moved to wanker then back to boring geek again was to blame? Perhaps because every plot element felt contrived and wholly improbable even in a comic book world?

So who is to blame? What changed? Lets see:

Same actors? Check.
Same Director? Check.
Same Budget or bigger? Check.
Same Writer?... Lets see:

Spiderman 1 - David Koepp
Spiderman 2 - Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Michael Chabon
Spiderman 3 - Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi (his brother)

Sam, you've a cool director, but leave off the writing. You may feel that you owe your brother a cushy writing job on a high profile project, but you should have left it to the real writers. Guys like David and Alfred just have a better feel for story and can get some real emotion from their characters. Some of the dialog in 3 was so inane and childish it was embarrassing to have to hear it.

Now thinking about this I am now dreading the impact of the writers strike. If you write for film, then you probably love to watch the odd film too. If the good guys have put down their pens I really am afraid of the result. I really hope that AMPTP come to their senses and shop a workable deal soon.

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