After sitting for what seemed liked forever, the lights suddenly came on, and two guys came in. I thought that there was a projector death, and that the movie was ka-put. In fact, the guy even made it seem like that by starting out, "I have some bad... just kidding." Besides plugging the nearby GameStop's new shipment of Wiis, he was holding two Spider-Man dolls: the regular Spidey and the Symbiont Spidey. He asked who bought the largest sized popcorns, and I eagerly held mine up. He started to say, "Now if the bottom of your bucket says..." but by that point I had already looked at the bottom of my bucket and, to my surprise, written in marker on the bottom was "S2". "...S1 or S2, you win one of these." Nobody had the S1, but I excitedly cried out that I had the S2, and I was thrown the Symbiont Spidey who was my partner for the duration of the movie. That was great. And now, spoiler time:
*SPOILERS*
This was certainly a darker Spidey movie than the other two, in most parts. Peter is downright vicious at certain parts. But on the flip side, some of his evil antics are downright laughable, as he turns into a disco-dancing emo kid. While I enjoyed that montage, the "Raindrops" montage in the second movie still wins it for me. And, as television and movies have proven countless times, black eyeliner is the source of all evil. It worked for Captain Kirk, and, as soon as Peter turns to his dark side... BAM... he suddenly has black eyeliner. A little bit campy, but I forgave it. There's always been a slightly campy, irreverent undercurrent to these.
Gwen Stacy... totally useless. It seemed like her only purpose was for the moviemakers to say to the comic book fans, "Hey, Gwen Stacy's in the movie!" Of course, she couldn't have the kind of role she had in the comic books. They missed that boat by about two movies.
Harry... wonderful. I loved everything about his side of the story, and all of his seeming deaths and seeming recoveries and seeming hope was just so tormenting. How I wished he could have stayed happy and oblivious and continued to make omelettes. But Norman just refuses to actually die, continuing to possess the same mirror that Harry broke in the last movie (magically repaired) and give him Satanic messages. At one point, I just wanted to yell at him to just go away and die already, so we could all be happy. But then there wouldn't be a movie, and Harry's arc wouldn't be interesting. It was heartwarming to see Harry and Peter playing basketball and having the same friendship they had at the beginning of the first movie. It was wonderfully exhilarating to see Peter as Spider-Man and Harry as the New Goblin fighting side by side against Sandman and Venon, even though I knew Harry wouldn't make it out of it alive. And... he didn't. But at least he was able to redeem himself.
And as for Peter and Mary Jane... a hell of a lot of problems could have been avoided had they just been honest and open with each other like healthy relationships should work. But, no, they kept pretty much everything from one another, and it totally screwed them over. But once again, had it not been like that, there would have been no plot.
One thing I love about this series is its sense of continuity. Nearly every peripheral character that had a reason to be there was there again... all the members of the Bugle staff have been in all three movies. Mr. Ditkovitch and his daughter Ursula are back. Uncle Ben and Norman make cameos again (it's amazing how many different things they can have dead characters do, even though it's pretty much the same stuff over and over again). Dr. Connors is still doing his thing. Even the "killer" from the first movie comes back again. I found that very helpful to get right back into it.
Overall... I don't know. It ended rather downbeat, which isn't bad. I really want to see it again. The thrill of the experience is still with me, so I can't really objectively say, but, for right now, I'm very pleased. But... if Barnard, that damned butler, had been a little more forthcoming with information in the previous movie, he could have saved us from a lot of heartache. But once again, no movie...
So, yeah, go see it and add your thoughts to mine!