Spider-Man 3

"Spider-Man 3" is like a 10-part edition of the comic-book series with a mountain of villains and a vacationing hero.

There are five - count 'em, five - baddies in the blockbuster second sequel, including, for a painfully long stretch, Peter Parker himself (more on this below). The others include Sandman/Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), New Goblin/Harry Osborn (James Franco), Venom/Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) and an amorphous black blob, none of which could carry a movie by themselves and all of which emerge as mediocre replacements for Alfred Molina's marvelous Doc Ock from "Spider-Man 2."

The real villain, though is director Sam Raimi, who, despite his Hollywood movies' increasing budgets, had always maintained a pint-sized indie integrity in the face of studio interference. This time, though, the suits won, making the flick an overstuffed, self-satisfied and flat-out lazy turkey that becomes a chore to sit through long before the dopey climax.

The movie's too convoluted to give a full summary, but the gist is that Spidey's life is perfect. Too perfect. After a series of city-saving escapades, he's fast-becoming an arrogant pencil-neck, given to kissing other women and bathing in publicity.

But it isn't enough that Peter Parker's ego has exploded - itself a good enough character device to sustain the picture. No, he also has to be infected by a giant, oozing alien (has any superhero ever been such a magnet for supernatural bites?), a chemical compund that expands the power and personality of its host.

Thus, Parker becomes an even bigger jerk, a hyper-aggressive freak - the poster boy for 'roid rage without the muscles to back it up.

No, the muscle is provided by Sandman, an escaped convict who, conveniently enough, happened to have killed Parker's uncle Ben, and who has inadvertently run into a radioactive experiment that powderizes his molecules, making him impossible to kill. Sandman can't be killed by bullets, fire or bombs. His only weakness, it seems, is his daughter, who's dying of some disease or another, and doesn't have the money to get adequate medical attention.

Meanwhile, the New Goblin, still smarting from the killing of his father (Willem Defoe) in the first movie, desperately seeks revenge on Parker via an arsenal of grenades and a gigantic flying boogie-board. After a convenient bout of amnesia, the New Goblin's alter ego Harry Osborn re-enters the good graces of both Parker and his beady-eyed girlfriend Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst).

While Osborn turns over his green sword, Eddie Brock emerges as a ready replacement. Brock is an amateur shutterbug – an ambitious jerk whose sights are set on Parker’s newspaper gig. After getting fired for doctoring a photo of Spidey committing a robbery, the embittered Brock goes crazy, and…well, a bunch of other stuff happens, little else of which is worth reading about.

Suffice it to say that in between the lugubrious dialogue and tired Parker/Mary Jane romantic odyssey, we have to sit through interminable fight scenes – each one a non sequitur that lends nothing to the plot and has nothing to do with the consistency of the characters. "Spider-Man 3," like its spiritual cousin, Steven Spielberg's disastrous "War of the Worlds," inserts brawls between Spidey and the Goblin and Sandman which don't further the plot - which could be a benefit, given how ludicrous the plot really is.

Both of the previous installments - the competent but uninspiring "Spider-Man" and its often-exhilirating sequel, explored the stages of adolescence, from the masturbatory goo that escapes the teen Parker's wrists to the distractions of first love that were emphasized in the second installment. Now Parker (played by the 32-year-old Maguire) is entering the know-it-all late teen phase that all of us went through, a bit of unpleasantness that Raimi doesn't bother to play straight. There are 2 major problems with this:

Problem #1: No one wants to hang out with a self-satisfied jerk for 2 1/2 hours, especially if his cockiness is punctuated by displays of invincible physical prowess. (At least the puffed-up bozos we recall from our own painful formative years had weaknesses that were visible to everyone except ourselves.)

Problem #2: Raimi has no idea how to dramatize Parker's shift, except to plaster Maguire with black eye shadow and an outfit to match - he's a comic version of The Cure's Robert Smith - and has him strutting around NYC with a swagger that alternately attracts and repels women of the opposite sex. Like the Black Knight version of Larry Dallas from "Three's Company," Petey's game doesn't match his bloated self-esteem.

Except for Maguire, who’s as steady a presence as Hollywood has, the acting is uniformly terrible, with the typically reliable Church and Grace taking bottom honors. Dunst is vacant and whiny and even J.K. Simmons can’t get his line readings down. Everyone seems to be daydreaming about their paychecks, which is understandable given the lousy script (by Sam and Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent).

It would take two directors to pull off this movie - Raimi for the action, Paul Thomas Anderson for the angst - but Raimi himself suffers from Parker's brand of hubris, thinking he can do it all himself without an inkling that he's in far too deep. Psychodrama is, if you’ll pardon the reference, his Kryptonite.

At this point, the franchise can’t go anywhere but down; Raimi and crew are on autopilot and, given the fact that they’ve gotten away with it here without any box office penalty, why should they try at all?

Rating: *