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With mostly deserved fanfare and hype Spiderman 3 roared into the weekend box office shattering first day and three-day weekend Box Office records. A welcome start to the Summer Box Office season, the new Spiderman delivers some of the best special effects ever. But, where the first two offered solid story lines and believable relationship gravitas, this entry strains to find meaning and tension in the relationships between its characters and too numerous subplots.

I have come to expect a fair number jokes and imagery as obvious as cement blocks in superhero movies. You have to keep the kids entertained, and not every one is looking for subtlety and nuance with their popcorn. But, Peter’s “darker” side is revealed with such tedium and heavy-handedness that’s it’s sometimes embarrassing. And, poor Kirsten Dunst often looks like it hurts to be in this film; I anticipated this before seeing the movie. During an interview with Letterman and after a clip of the movie was shown she complained somewhat bitterly “they didn’t even show me acting.” If I were a betting man I would assure you she won’t be back for a fourth.

James Franco is mostly well-used as more than just eye candy. His “Goblin Jr.” develops interestingly and somewhat unexpectedly, though his character resolution is offered much too late and much too conveniently. Bryce Dallas Howard is pitch-perfect as Gwen Stacy, but doesn’t have enough to do, lost in the bloated script. Topher Grace is blond and deservedly enthused to be doing something other than “That 70’s Show.”

Ultimately, watching Thomas Haden Church become and understand himself as the Sandman is a perfect parallel to what has happened in this trilogy. Wrought with history, duty and expectation even though it appears Sandman can retain his form with ever more resources to grow, it takes but a dash of water or swift wind to be reduced to a pile of well-digitized dust. The film isn’t as good as the first, but is still better than almost all other comic book movies except maybe “Hellboy” and the X-Men pictures. In the first two films Sam Raimi (director) deftly captured the essence of Spiderman, the “with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility” burden, and the torment that can bring to an ordinary life. However, this latest picture falls a little flat and rings a little false as the the tide of near perfection the first two times around ebbs at the footsteps of expectation.