A tangled web

If a movie's status as an epic were determined by its number of characters, plotlines and pop-philosophy themes, "Spider-Man 3" would be one of the greatest movies ever made.\nAnd indeed the movie's makers seem to suffer from this delusion, believing that the more material a movie takes on, the more brain activity its audience will have to involve in watching it.\nBut what actually happens is that it creates so many isolated lines of thought that when the end of the movie tries to spin them into a cohesive web, it doesn't quite work. By then, so many characters, plotlines and themes have remained undeveloped that it's hard to remember what was going on the last time they were involved, 45 minutes ago.\nPeter Parker, a.k.a., Spider-Man (Tobey McGuire) thinks everything is finally going his way. Spider-Man is all over newspaper and magazine fronts, his girlfriend Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) has made it as a Broadway singer and his best-friend-turned-enemy Harry Osborn (James Franco) loses his memory in a fight and forgets he had been trying to kill Spider-Man. \nThen, before he knows it, Spider-Man has been overtaken by an aggression-hungry symbiote, Mary Jane gets fired and breaks up with Peter for being insensitive about it, Harry gets his memory back, a new journalist at Peter's paper the Daily Bugle named Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) one-ups Peter's photography and an escaped convict gets stuck in a particle accelerator and turns into a city-destroying sandman.\nGet all that? \nThe movie's attempts to philosophize add to the confusion. \nWhile its main theme is clearly free will vs. predestination, it spends the vast majority of screen time exploring sub-themes that don't quite tie into the main one: the critic vs. the everyman, the free man's prejudice against the imprisoned man, forgiveness, the mystique of love and how biology can overwhelm character. \n"Spider-Man 3," does, however, have its antidotes. Peter's anorexic-looking neighbor Ursula (Mageina Tovah), who is always baking in the kitchen, serves up several laughs. And the symbiote that induces Peter briefly to become a badass also apparently induces him to look like he just dropped out of a goth-rock band.\nAnd, despite being hard to follow, the movie rarely gets boring. It keeps a steady pace, and its characters are lively, if flat.\nThe special features are pretty good. They contain separate commentaries by the director/cast and filmmakers, and there's an impressive gallery of pictures, some of which show how they did the special effects. They also have a music video for the Snow Patrol song "Signal Fire," which isn't bad if you're into Snow Patrol and cute children.\nHad it narrowed its focus, "Spider-Man 3" could have come closer to that epic it was trying to be.