Or... Civil War?

What's so "badass" about him anyway? That he says "We" instead of "I"? That he has a big jaw that drips goo? That he has big teeth? There's no depth to his story ("I hate Spider-Man because he indirectly caused me to lose my job, and YOU hate Spider-Man because he rejected your alien love, so let's join up and hate Spider-Man together! Grr!") and his powers are pretty unoriginal (Spider-Man's powers, but stronger and with black goo instead of web fluid. Plus morphing, cuz morphing was COOL in the 90s.)

Half the people that think he's the shit are kids who never read Spider-Man and only saw Venom on the animated show. If you had actually read comics in the 90s, and saw what a total fucking mess McFarlane and company made of Spider-Man back then, and had to suffer through the lame-ass Venom stories ("Oh dear. My evil twin is after me and he knows who I am, and who my girlfriend is, and where I live... Just like half my of other enemies... But this guy HATES me and his power blocks my Spider-sense, so I'm in slightly more danger than I would be if I fought the Green Goblin, but only until I find a bell tower, siren, sonic blaster, or particularly loud car alarm which will defeat him, because his weakness is-- of all things-- SOUND WAVES.)

Venom is a villain made to appeal to mouth-breathing wankers who only need to see a character dressed in black to think he's "cool" or "badass" or "dark" or "deep."

Venom is shit. He has always been shit. He only got slightly interesting lately in the Thunderbolts, as Mac Gargan (formerly the Scorpion), once Eddie Brock kicked the bucket.

And don't get me started on Cletus "the skinny red redneck version of Venom" Carnage. All I can say is I CHEERED when Sentry flew his lame ass into the sky and TORE HIM IN HALF like the weak, stupid fucking character he was. Good riddance. The fucking RINGER was more intimidating than Carnage.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

It also had the 2nd best emotion...Spidey 2 was a little better there b/c angst and suffering just plays better...but to me Spidey 3 had the most "dude, he has fallen so far" moment that was heartbreaking when he hit MJ.

And seriously, Peter is completely NOT emo in Spidey 3!!! What?? A guy brushes his hair down over his forehead and that makes him emo??? Everything else he was doing while symbioted was NOT emo...it was just amplifying his already geek personality....all the reactions he got were of ridicule and disgust...which was exactly what was intended! It was TOTALLy like that in the comics!! And was the jazz dance REALLY worse than fracking "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" and that god-awful freeze-frame of Peter's goofy smile?

Though the Raimi films are light on Spidey's cracking wise 3 has Spidey cracking the most...acting cocky as he often did in the comics before everything hit the wall.

Was Venom rushed? Yeah...the film is not without its flaws but still we got Venom and he looked DEAD-ON like the comic version...which was light years ahead of anything we thought we would would get 10 years ago when a Spider-man film was a distant dream. He worked great...just wasn't in it enough with enough time to develop...shoulda been saved for 4....which I DO hope we get a Raimi 4 b/c in my opinion (not saying this is fact guys) in my opinion the Spidey films keep getting better and I'd love another from this team.

Don't get me wrong...I LOVE Spidey 1 and 2 more than most movies, but I really just DONT GET the Spidey 3 hate.

Ah, frack it, I'm going to bed.

Fuck Venom and everyone involved with Spidey 3. Most of all fuck you, Sony, with your Scorpion King/Anakin/Thulsa Doom/T4 horseshit.

I love Venom, but... sigh... just dont know...

Also, and I know I will be kicked for this - I really like Vampires. Sue me.

And Vampires is a damned fun movie.

But his second Masters Of Horror was awful (Pro Life). Felt like a mid day movie of the week or something. Even shot badly, which was weird.

toodles!

damon and affleck turn to van zant for direction and he is just counting a stack of cash

I picture raimi doing pretty much the same on S3

Dogmatic, I'm with you. I don't get the hate for SM3 either. Besides the train scene, I didn't get what was so great about SM2, as it was essentially SM1 with a different villain. SM3 did have great action sequences, funny stuff (say what you want about the 'dance' scenes, but a lot of that stuff felt like a love letter to the Silver Age Spidey), and a movie that actually showed some character development and was actually about something. Going back to the initial idea of Uncle Ben's death was a good one (and Church's performance as Sandman was excellent), and the themes of redemption and forgiveness were a nice departure from the whole father figure villain thing.

I like that the recent artwork makes Norman look a little like Tommy Lee Jones, too. Even Nuclear Man is interesting in Thunderbolts. They all fucking hate each other, but have to play nice-- It's good writing for a lot of mid-tier characters that would have lingered in limbo otherwise.

First, he ruined Spiderman. For some reason, kids actually liked his ridiculous scratchy over-detailed crap drawings, inventing muscles and drawing every body/face exactly the same, male and female, no style but lots of it, no care given to actual draftmanship, perspective, anatomy, or any of the things illustrators have taken for granted as the basis of what makes even comic art 'good'. Then the suits decided to give him some power of his own, because the slackjaws were buying, and he invented one of the most disgusting, derivative, and stupid characters ever seen in comics- Spawn. Spawn is just...gross. He's suburban angst. He's Insane Clown Posse. He's trash.

McFarlane is a talented businessman, though, I'll give you that. He took his 'revenge of the nerd' ambition and became a millionaire by turning the comics industry into his own personal running toy commercial, just like saturday morning cartoons. I guess in a way it's a good thing that McFarlane was the harbinger of doom for mainstream comics in the 90's, it prompted underground comics to fill the gap, and opened opportunities for young artists who had to simply be better than McFarlane (not a difficult task, apparently) to make a name for themselves.

I still miss the comics of old though, Claremont, Byrne, George Perez, Art Adams, Alan Davis, John Romita, John Romita Jr., Walt Simonson, Barry Windsor-Smith,... See, I may not have talent, but at least I can recognize it. You? Not so much.

As for Venom, I agree with the posters above who said the church scene should have been the epilogue of Spidey3 and then 4 could have had Venom. But Venom hate aside...I'd really really like to see the Lizard for Lee's sake! From the very first one, Dylan Baker has been putting in the work (excellent work in fact, even if only tiny bits and pieces) and he deserves his day in the Spidey sun. Plus, of the very few Spidey comics I've read, Lizard was always one of the kewler villains and had a good origin story. Give us Lizard...then maybe Kraven and then come back to Venom. Spidey 3 wasn't absolute shit but it was quite crappy in parts and Venom is poorly realized. Carnage certainly looks interesting but if you guys say he sucks...well then I'm sure we'll be seeing him as the villain in the new Venom movie!

Sidepocket I was not comparing Spidey 3 to Dark Knight. I recognize Dark Knight is superior filmaking...I saw it 3 times already...but the greatness of Dark Knight does not make Spidey 3 suck! It stands still as my favorite Spidey movie and now 2nd favorite superhero movie tied with Iron Man with Dark Knight holding #1 now. Though I hope Watchmen smashes all of them to take #1!!!!

Brainfart, I wasn't saying the "Raindrops keep falling on my head" didnt work. I liked it fine....I was just saying TO ME it came off far goofier than the jazz dance which I felt totally fit the film in that moment.