Like most people, this is my most-anticipated film of the year, so I was absolutely excited when it turned out that I've gotten tickets to Hitz.fm's sneak preview of Spider-Man 3 just a day before its nationwide release (Spidey 3 is premiering in Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and numerous other Asian countries on the 1st of May whilst people of USA can only catch the film on the 4th of May, YESSSSSS!!!).
I've long placed SPIDER-MAN 2 high up the pedestal as my favourite superhero movie of all time, because everything about it appealed to me, the humour, the action, the character drama, the romance, everything clicked so well that there was nothing I could complain about the film at all.
SPIDER-MAN 2 had pushed the bar so high that, since then, every single big-budget superhero movie that came out, with the exception of BATMAN BEGINS, seemed just like kiddie movies. Mindless popcorn entertainment that may satisfy only hardcore comic book fans. X-MEN 3 was entertaining for its major explosions (but nothing much), SUPERMAN RETURNS was so overwhelming in its sheer seriousness (and its attempt to make Supes suffer from girl problems like Spidey) that it left a bad taste in my mouth some time after I saw it, GHOST RIDER was rubbish, FANTASTIC FOUR was amusing sometimes (but only because I was in a good mood when watching it, and Jessica Alba convinced me that the film ain't that bad).
SPIDER-MAN 2 is near perfection, and represents, to me, commercial filmmaking at its best, when the artsy fartsy poser types start speaking haughtily about their disdain for Hollywood films, I point at SPIDER-MAN 2, I said that a film like that impresses me much more as some self-indulgent incoherent rubbish that packages itself as 'high art'.
And because of that, I never expected SPIDER-MAN 3 to surpass its predecessor, I'd be happy enough if the drop of standard isn't dramatic, and that it can still be nearly as good as SPIDER-MAN 2. Hearing that there would be three villains in the film had worried me initially, making me fear that the film would end up becoming something like BATMAN AND ROBIN, crushing under the weight of the numerous characters and subplots it needed to juggle.
