I could have sworn you've gone over this before in earlier videos, Bob? Or perhaps it's something you've talked about on twitter. Either way I agree with you quite strongly on almost every point re: Spider-Man 3, although I'm not sure what you see in Tobey Maguire. Dude can't act.
I actually rewatched the Raimi trilogy quite recently, and if anything I found it was the first film I had the least patience with. It's perfectly functional and it plods along fine, hitting all the right story beats and all that, but there's not very much I find actually all that interesting in it (aside from JK Simmons' perfect J Jonah Jameson and Willem Dafoe's delightfully goofy Green Goblin). It's not a movie I find much value in watching again. Compare that with Spider-Man 3 which, sure, is a mess of contrasting ideas that just don't gel together, but the individual elements that do work are fucking great. Honestly (and here's where everyone stops reading, if they haven't already), I'd take Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 over Raimi's Spider-Man for pretty much the same reason. Sure, Webb's film is full of disparate elements that have nothing to do with each other, but it's still fun to watch, in a way Raimi's first attempt mostly isn't. I'm not saying The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will hold up to repeat viewings as well as Raimi's third, though, in fact I doubt I'd ever bother watching it again. But it kept me entertained for two hours. Most movies don't.
I actually rewatched the Raimi trilogy quite recently, and if anything I found it was the first film I had the least patience with. It's perfectly functional and it plods along fine, hitting all the right story beats and all that, but there's not very much I find actually all that interesting in it (aside from JK Simmons' perfect J Jonah Jameson and Willem Dafoe's delightfully goofy Green Goblin). It's not a movie I find much value in watching again. Compare that with Spider-Man 3 which, sure, is a mess of contrasting ideas that just don't gel together, but the individual elements that do work are fucking great. Honestly (and here's where everyone stops reading, if they haven't already), I'd take Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 over Raimi's Spider-Man for pretty much the same reason. Sure, Webb's film is full of disparate elements that have nothing to do with each other, but it's still fun to watch, in a way Raimi's first attempt mostly isn't. I'm not saying The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will hold up to repeat viewings as well as Raimi's third, though, in fact I doubt I'd ever bother watching it again. But it kept me entertained for two hours. Most movies don't.