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Thanks to fast and frequent action set pieces, a lot of surprising laughs and hands down the best special effects of the franchise so far, Spidey survives the curse of three.

Normally, when a franchise reaches its third installment, some serious cracks start to show. Frequent causes include a complete lack of new ideas or a changeover in the creative team (call it "the Ratner Factor"—which plagued "X-Men: The Last Stand"). Fortunately, "Spider-Man 3" returns with its original team (director Sam Raimi and stars Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco) intact and, if anything, they have almost too many new ideas to work with.

Diehard fans may complain about the quick and arbitrary treatment given to the origins of new villains Sandman (Thomas Haden Church, "Sideways") and Venom (Topher Grace, "That '70s Show")—especially Venom, the alien symbiote that gives Spidey a new black suit and creates his foe literally drops out of nowhere—but in the end, as cool as the bad guys are, it's just not their show. Raimi succeeds where others have failed because he never loses sight of the core characters: Peter Parker (Maguire), Mary Jane Watson (Dunst) and Harry Osborn (Franco).

The director also manages to offset some of the movie's cheesier moments with others of pure comedy and fun ("Evil Dead" star Bruce Campbell's cameo this time may be his best of the three), proving that you don't have to take comic book movies entirely seriously.

If, as rumored, this turns out to be the last hurrah for Raimi and the kids, it's a great note to go out on.

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