Spider-Man 3 (Blu-ray)

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Forget all that faster than a speeding bullet stuff. When it comes to superhero superlatives, "Spider-Man 3" proves that this is still the comics-to-film series to beat. Everything about it--the special effects, the script, the sets, the costumes, the performances, the Spidey-cam cinematography--is super.

My wife's favorite is still the first "Spider-Man," and I know that many fans think Number 2 is still champ. But in my book there's been a slight-but-steady progression. Every film seems to me a little "larger," a little more complex, and a little more accomplished than the previous one when it comes to special effects. Those runaway train and Doc Ock sequences were wonderful, but it's hard to imagine anything topping the CGI-animation of Venom tendrils grabbing hold like a more sophisticated "Blob," or The Sandman deconstructing and reconstructing himself from billions of pixel-particles. And the New Goblin on his hoverboard, with all those slice-and-dice gadgets? It really does the comics justice, and you can see that from an obviously elated Stan Lee, who appears not only in cameo with a speaking line in the film, but on a multitude of bonus features as well.

Fans have got to be wondering how much director Sam Raimi and his crew can pack into one film. Just as each film has gotten progressively longer (121, 127, and now 139 minutes), the villains just keep multiplying. There was one (Green Goblin) in the first installment, two (Doc Ock and Green Goblin, albeit briefly) in the second, and three (Venom, The Sandman, and the new Goblin) in the third installment. Does that mean four baddies will beset Spidey in the next sequel, if there is one?

But that's getting ahead of ourselves, isn't it?

The business at hand is "Spider-Man 3," and I think that writers Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, and Alvin Sargent did a great job of stringing together plotlines that would allow them to fill the screen with three eye-popping villains. They also handle the notion of doubling pretty effectively, with all sorts of parallels and ironic doubles occurring throughout the film.

Spider-Man has his red suit and the black one he dons after Venom's creeping influence. Eddie Brock is not only Peter Parker's "double"--a brash and unprincipled young man who tries to worm his way into J. Jonah Jameson's (J.K. Simmons') good graces by competing with Peter as the exclusive photographer of Spider-Man--but he also has his "badder" Eddie which results when the parasitic Venom adopts him as a permanent host. Both Peter (Tobey Maguire) and his girlfriend Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) lose their jobs, while each of them is torn between two members of the opposite sex. MJ finds herself drawn to Harry "New Goblin" Osborn (James Franco) after Peter's head swells with Spider-Man's newfound popularity with New Yorkers, and a full-of-himself Peter can't resist a kiss from pretty Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who herself has another "other" interested in her--that unprincipled fellow Eddie Brock. And just as Spider-Man goes through "good" and "bad" permutations this outing, we see similar dualities in the New Goblin and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church). Only Venom is steadfastly evil . . . and even it has a double-thing going, with two hosts, one of them good and the other not-so.

It's a lot to juggle, and I appreciate what Raimi & Co. were able to pull off. There's no slump in performances, either, with strong outings from all the actors. Church is surprisingly good as escaped convict Flint Marko, who's transformed into Sandman when he's atomized after climbing into a top-secret U.S. outdoor experiment while fleeing from police. But if there's a deal-clincher it's the special effects. From the "wall of water" that bursts toward Sandman to those supervillain super stunts, the effects are brilliant and a giggle to watch.

Given the family audience, "Spider-Man 3" offers perhaps the most profound subtle message of the three: that, as the tagline touts, "Every hero has a choice." So does every individual, as young viewers can plainly see with Peter Parker and the moral journey he takes in the third installment. It's a message that will hit home because Maguire as Parker is such a believable, likeable, average nerdy guy.

"Spider-Man 3" is rated PG-13 for action violence, but this is the kind of film that seems made for the whole family. It's a good old-fashioned super-romp that has enough romance to entice the girls in the family and enough action to hold the boys' interest. My personal favorites? When Spider-Man fights The Sandman on top of a moving vehicle and literally takes the legs out from under the grainy one, and the sequence where a crane-gone-wild cuts a swath across a skyscraper, causing an entire floor to drop on a perilous incline. It's wonderful special effects and stunt-making, and the kind of thing that makes "Spider-Man 3" a really good popcorn movie. I don't think it's perfect. There are a few moments when things get cheesy, for example, and so I wouldn't feel comfortable giving it a 10. But if we can have high fives, I'd consider this a "high nine." I'm hard-pressed to find much in it that I don't enjoy or admire.