So we get to the end of the movie, right? [We did mention the spoilers, right? -ed] End credits roll, the whole shebang.
Eddie Brock? Dead. (Probably)
Harry Osbourne? Dead.
Gwen Stacey? Still breathing.
WHAT. THE. HELL!?
Gwen Stacey dies. That's like... the big thing. That's what separates Gwen from every other comic character in the known universe (and several Enterprise captains): she died, and she never came back. Well, except for the perfect clone of Gwen that Jackal created. And the army of Gwen Staceys from that one really crap Deadpool comic. But other than that she stayed six feet under like she's supposed to.
Yet here she is, sitting at Norman Osbourne's funeral (?) with her father (?) quite alive and well. Now don't get me wrong, I love Gwen Stacey as much as the next guy, even if Parker is the next guy, but the whole crane sequence I kept waiting for her to bite the bullet. Even if killing Gwen is meant for the fourth or fifth film, its still not fair, because not even Straczynski would have the idiocy and the balls to have a timeframe where Gwen Stacey is alive and X is not (X can equal Norman Osbourne, Harry Osbourne, Otto Octavius, etc.).
Other than that, the film was good, but I liked 1 & 2 better. Other problems that caught my eye:
- 95% of the time Kristin Dunst was in a scene, I found myself wishing I needed to run to the bathroom. She was slightly annoying in 2, but this time just was full on painful to watch. Somebody should put her in a room, force her to watch the first film, and say "this is how you chew scenery you dumb twat!"
- Some of the non-MJ parts were hard to stomach too... even the dumbest guy knows you can't kiss a girl in front of your girlfriend, for Pete's sake (pun intended).
- What class is Peter taking again? He says Gwen is his lab partner and he helps her because "science isn't her strong class". Science isn't a class! Science is a branch. Quantum Mechanics (which is what it sounds like Peter is in, with Hamiltonians and the like) is a class. And if Gwen's not such a hot student, why did she beat Peter to the answer with the m=0 states? Yes, I wish there was more physics in the movie, and I don't mean the lack of realism in the fight scenes. (Incidently, what do you do for labs in QM classes? Especially undergraduate classes where perky-breasted like teases like Gwen can happily enrol).
- Since when was Curt Conners not a biologist? I assume they are either going to re-cast the role or else find some other way to work The Lizard (one of my favourite Spidey villains) origin story out, since a particle physicist wouldn't have the knowledge of Herpetology needed to ingest an arm-replenishing serum. And yes, Herpetology is a real word, I didn't make it up.
- Topher grace, as I suspected, makes a really really really crappy Edward Brock. Wasn't he supposed to be a great athlete or something?
