I went to see Spiderman 3 last night and was thoroughly disappointed. The $250 million movie put up impressive numbers in terms of ticket sales, bringing in a record $148 million in its weekend debut. But money aside, the movie was painful to watch.

The biggest problem with Spiderman 3 is that there are too many storylines, all of which get too little attention. The first 30 minutes of the movie is dedicated to a recap of Peter’s relationship with MJ. This is very very boring, and ultimately not really relevant to the rest of the movie. It could have been cut entirely.

Then, the movie goes into villain overload, first with Harry the goblin, and next with the introduction of the Sandman, Tofer Grace who is Peter’s rival at the paper, and venom.

The problem though, is that the movie just briefly touches on each villain, and their creation, so that it follows the comic storyline, but makes little other sense.

For example, with Sandman, the guy happens to fall into some sand experiment while running from the cops. He literally just falls into the middle of the experiment, right as it’s beginning, and gets mutated or whatever into sandman. That’s all the explanation you get - it’s rushed and frustrating.

Even less explanation is given to venom. You see venom’s meteor just happen to hit the earth right next to Peter and hop on his bike. Where it came from, and how it just happened to end up next to Spiderman is not explained.

Of course, venom also inexplicably attaches on to Spiderman’s suit, turning it black. All we learn here, from some random scientist, is that peter should be careful, because the venom can attach to people and be hard to get rid of. Great.

The scientist didn’t mention that venom would lead to one of the most ridiculous music montages I have ever seen in a movie, with Toby walking down the street snapping his fingers to music, dancing on bar tops, and wooing women.

There’s also the ongoing storyline of Harry, who is still upset that Spiderman killed his father. This has gotten a bit played out over the course of two movies, but is made a bit more interesting when a head injury to Harry makes him forget that he hates Peter/Spiderman.

Finally, we see Eddie Brock, a freelance photographer who trys to beat peter in the spidey photo game, and eventually gets turned into venom. And, big surprise, Eddie starts to hate Spiderman and peter, and they fight.

All the while, we’re looking at Kristen Dunst’s overly dimpled face and crooked teeth.

Did I mention this movie was nearly 3 hours long (ok, 2 hours 20 mins plus 20 mins of previews)? We went in there at 9:20 and didn’t get out until nearly midnight.

This is one of those movies where the best part is when it ends. It was a relief to finally get out of that theater.

The storyline is so convoluted, and it feels like it was thrown together at the 11th hour. You can tell the writers were struggling to cram together five decades worth of comics into a three hour movie, but it just didn’t work.

Not only that, but the movie wasted a lot of time with tear jerking scenes with MJ, aunt may, etc. That gives it a feeling of being very off-paced. Sooo frustrating.

The only highlight of the movie was special effects - and these were spectacular. The CGI sandman was cool, as was venom’s teeth, and even the goblin.

But the special effects were still to few and far between to hold the movie together, making it a $250 million waste of $10.50.