It’s really sad when a $250 million dollar Hollywood picture only buys plain old mediocrity. Spider-Man 3 actually angered me to the point where I hoped the Sandman, or Venom, or hell even Mary-Jane, would put the whiney arachnid super hero out of his misery, because if one thing’s for certain about this summer season flake job, it’s that Spidey has lost his flipping mind (or webbing). As played yet again by Tobey Maguire, the most recent development of Spider-Man comes damn close to being embarrassing. Anger (as displayed by a comet that hits Earth but no one seems to explain) infects Peter Parker and turns him rogue, at least for a few scenes. Peter battles his inner demons, then every other monster that shows up (and there’s a few), in order to save the day and be able to lecture us with an insulting voice over narration about how choices make us the people we are today. No, really? I didn’t need to hear what was already obviously implied throughout the whole painful endeavor. Raimi plays some middle scenes as if they were off the cutting room floor of a bad Jim Carrey/Adam Sandler extravaganza, for what reason I still cannot fathom. In short, Spider-Man 3 represents everything wrong with the American audience’s expectations at the movies. It’s simple, ridiculous from a story perspective, unfocused, lazy, but most of all, mediocre and boring. But people go, hell, even I went. Does that make it okay, even when you have two good foundation films to build off of? No, of course not, and Raimi/et all should be ashamed of themselves for making a film so tedious, so enamored with playing to the lowest common denominator, that they’re destined to sink the bar even more that we could already afford. Besides Transformers (because it actually looks like Michael Bay uses his budget for brilliant set pieces), I’m boycotting these huge mounds of cow dung being thrown our way. It’s the only way these greedy L.A. bastards will listen.