Someone said that this third movie in the Spider-man series was pretty much on a par with the first movie. In quality, I’d say that’s about right — a good movie, but not up to the second one in the series.

Where Spider-Man 2 started out with Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) in the dumps (he’d lost his pizza-delivery job, he was on the outs with Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), his classwork was down the tubes), here he seems to be doing well (his relationship with Mary Jane is back up there, his classwork is going well, all of New York loves him). He is even getting ready to propose to Mary Jane. But, naturally, problems arise. Mary Jane is let go from her singing role in a New York play because critics don’t think her voice is loud enough. You may suppose that this causes hangups and hesitations for the beauteous Mary Jane. A new super-villain — who turns out to be the person who really murdered Uncle Ben — appears on the scene (the Sandman, aka Flint Marko, aka Thomas Haden Church). Peter now has some competition at work, the unscrupulous Eddie Brock (Topher Grace). There is a nasty, nasty symbiont from space that conceives an affinity for Spidey’s suit — and, later, for Eddie Brock.And, of course, there’s Harry Osborn (James Franco) hanging around in the background, aware of Peter’s secret identity as Spider-Man, believing that Spidey killed his father, and now well-acquainted with his father’s arsenal of gadgetry.

A quick run-in between Spidey and Goblin Jr. solves that problem, at least temporarily, when Harry loses his memory back to before his father’s death; but the Goblin will be back, though perhaps not exactly as we expect.

The timing of the movie did not seem quite right to me. The beginning was too drawn out — perhaps half an hour could have been cut. The final battle, to the contrary, was a bit too short, and could have had five or even ten minutes added to it. Although I’m an old-time Gwen Stacy fan, Gwen’s time came and went in the first year or so of the comics; adding her and her father, Captain Stacey (James Cromwell), to this episode seemed to me to be excessive, especially since Captain Stacey, a more interesting character, had such a small part to play.

But, still and all, comparing this film with the first rather than the second is not really an insult; both were good. Just not, by comparison with the second film, exceptional.