If you're a fan of the "Spider-Man" comics and movies, here's your chance to tell us what you think about the latest from Hollywood -- "Spider-Man 3."

Tell us what you liked or didn't like about the movie, and feel free to give it a grade of 1 (poor) to 4 (excellent) .

Please include your name and home town with your e-mail. Send your reviews to postscript@post-gazette.com.

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Is Spider-Man 3 teaching us a new lesson on violence and forgiveness?

If so, the mix of villains, plots, and sappy emotions overdoing a story that leaps from one fight scene to the next obscures something ungraspable that flaps in the background of this superhero flick. I'm not just talking about the immense U.S. flag that Spidey swings by in an all-American moment, although that has something to do with it. Nor am I talking about Peter Parker's vengeful hunt of the Sandman, although, with his with his desert-storm like qualities, I think Marko has something to do with it too. I'm talking about guilt and national disillusionment with America's own dark Spidey suit.

After years of the war on terrorism, maybe America is trying to come to terms with a web of seemingly unending and incomprehensible violence. Is America, like the characters of the new Spider-Man film, ready to stop denying its role in the perpetuation of violence?

Like Sherman Alexie's new novel Flight, this movie capitalizes on the ambiguous nature of the line that divides the good guys from the bad and suggests a shift in national consciousness. We're still not sure why we are in Iraq, why we are hated around the world, and what we can do to stop the violence. Are we looking to give and receive forgiveness?

Spider-Man 3's downfall is that it is not convincing. It strings a web that is thin and easy to disentangle -- when we all know we are caught in something knottier, stickier, and more labyrinthine.

-- Emily Cherne, Pittsburgh

I didn't like Spider-Man 3. It felt like they were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick. Some of the major problems in the movie:

The black goo from outer space:
You should only ask a viewer to suspend so much disbelief at one time. Regardless of what goes on in the Marvel comic book universe, I don't think that the alien life form goes down too smoothly in a Spidey movie. A better alternative, if they wanted to use this plotline, would have been to simply have the goo be something that Dr. Connors and Peter cooked up in the lab. It sort of fits with the type of research that Connors does in the comics, so it's less of a stretch.

The Sandman:
Gee, I'm surprised that they perform dangerous particle beam (or whatever) experiments just outside Manhattan, with no security beyond a fence. EPA, anyone? Homeland Security? Armed guards maybe? Anything? Plus, even in a movie about a man who got superpowers from the bite of a radioactive spider, Sandman's origin seems ... dumb. Plus, rewriting history to make him Ben Parker's killer is too much coincidence. I guess Flint Marko was supposed to look tortured, but honestly Thomas Haden Church just looked constipated.

Venom:
Again, coincidence rears its ugly head. Would it have been too much trouble to have Eddie Brock trailing Peter, or spot Spidey and follow him to the church, or something? You know, as opposed to just wandering into the same church the Spider-Man wanders into.

Harry's amnesia:
An unnecessary complication, it served only to give the writers an excuse for Peter being caught off guard when Harry attacks later. Lazy writing, that's all. Oh, and it was sure nice of the butler to finally tell Harry the truth, you know, after he'd tried to kill his best friend and been scarred for life.

A better movie could have been made by cutting all the superfluous crap and focusing on Peter's struggle with his dark side and the troubled relationship between Peter and Harry.

Not that I have a strong opinion about it or anything. 1 1/2 stars.

-- David Lawrence, Pittsburgh

This movie was a real disappointment to my family. We loved the first two Spiderman movies, but this one had no heart. At the end of the second movie, Spiderman's relationship with Mary Jane seems to be moving along. In this movie, they aren't living together and they don't seem to be communicating very well. Also, how could someone who works for a newspaper not know that his girlfriend lost the lead in a Broadway Musical? There were too many villains in this movie and is was so drawn-out, we started yawning. We saw some clips on television of the three main stars being interviewed and even they seemed bored with the movie.

-- K.K. Williams, Penn Hills

With all the hype over Spiderman 3, I certainly expected a lot more than I saw. The movie was boring, dragging in spots. My son, who is 8, commented that it was a love story. The action scenes were inadequate for the length of the movie. I would give it a 2, maybe 3 star. Of course, the kids (ages 8 & 9) liked it more. With the ending, you can see the villain for the next sequel. I would not see this movie again.

-- Fran

They did such a great job on Sandman from a visual point of view, had he been the only villain, it would have been enough. I think they could have fleshed (no pun intended) his character out a bit more and really made him a dynamic character. They could have gone further into him becoming solid to dusty sand and all the great things the character in the past has done. Unfortunately, they left the character very one dimensional and didn't really give us a reason to despise him. It was a confusing plot line with him and the accomplice.

They spend a lot of time focusing on the Peter/Harry and Peter/Mary Jane relationships and it did drag quite a bit. Not necessarily the action, but the storyline. Back and forth and on and off and ... well you get the picture. Mary Jane who in the first two movies, you kind of see what he loves about in her, you find yourself thinking ... well, he's better off without her whining. Not sure if that was a script problem or an acting problem. Probably a bit of both.

I felt when Spidey got his black suit they would really given him more of a mean streak but it was just cornballish. He was showoffish, not so mean. I was thinking it would affect him more like when Superman gets red kryptonite -- doing mean things because he has the power to and doesn't really care about the consequences. But he does grow some guts.

So when he finally gets rid of the black suit and Eddie Brock gets it and becomes Venom the black ooze doesn't really seem terribly menacing. But Venom looked great. But the Venom character was introduced so late you only got a taste of him and I left wanting more. He's too great a character.

They have a great final scene. The action was great. Nice storyline flips and it looks fantastic. Then the wrap up after the final battle is a bit sentimental and a bit corny. Could have cut five minutes post battle dialog for my taste. A lot of talking and nothing was really said.

I noticed a few times where the CGI almost took you out the movie in Spidey 1 and 2. I thought this was almost seamless. Never were you wondering is this CGI or practical effects. Overall I thought it was great. I saw it a second time with my four year old nephew and he really liked it.

-- Ron, Pittsburgh

Last night, after three years of waiting, I finally sat down to see "Spider-Man 3". About this time last year, the first trailer/teaser came out, and needless to say, I was geeked. Because, well at some level, I am a geek. Anyway, the expectations I had in mind were high; after all, the first two movies were far better than I had thought they'd be -- in short, I loved them. And considering that the same creative folks were doing this third movie, it stood to reason that they would hit this one out of the park too. Unfortunately, in the real world (and just like in the movies) reason doesn't always count for much.

"Spider-Man 3" turned out to be everything the other two movies weren't -- light on character depth and strength of portrayal, convoluted in plot, and a noisy, sloppy mess. It was pretty much what I was expecting of the first movie, recalling all of the bad comic book movies that had come before (i.e. every Batman movie after the first one). I wasn't expecting Shakespeare then, but what I saw was far, far better than I thought -- I wasn't expecting Shakespeare this time, either, and I certainly wasn't disappointed in that respect. There is so much wrong with the movie, what with ridiculously lazy plot contrivances, a veritable crowd of villains that cheated them all of needed screen time, and useless throw-away characters that served no purpose other than to be cardboard cutouts meant to advance a flimsy, if not overburdened, plot. But what really cut to the core, what really messed this up, was that the main characters -- Peter, Mary Jane, Harry -- were no longer the people that a viewer could identify with. They spend the majority of the movie being angry with each other, then crying about it later -- with precious little investment as to why we should care about them being so angry and hurt. Add to that a final battle that is, well, just plain stupid, and there you have a movie that makes even "The Reaping" look more adult and intelligent.

All of that said, I didn't totally hate this movie -- there were moments where some of the personality of the first two movies came through (i.e. Peter's sheer joy at his being a superhero which is quite nicely illustrated in the first minutes of the movie, his goofy transformation into 'dark Peter' and the consequences). However, these moments were just that -- moments. Instead of being part of the focus, they were just tossed in as casual asides, and thus never as fully, thoughtfully, or entertainingly explored. It almost seemed as if everyone involved said to themselves "Let's just get this over with and finish off the franchise." Cramming everything they possibly could into this movie left no real or reasonable room for another -- and sad to say, that might just be a good thing.

Of course, the most damning thing against this movie were my continual thoughts of "They should have hired me to write the script." I know I could have done a hundred times better than this. Even more sad was the fact that I'd been looking forward to this movie for nearly three years. Now, what's left? Oh well, I guess I look forward to football season in September, and hockey in October.

-- B.J. Leech, Mt. Washington

The movie was great; however, I did not think the previews for the upcoming movies were appropriate for children that were there to watch a superhero movie. I don't remember the name of the movie, but it was about a man that has sex with hundreds of women, after which they find their dreammate.

-- T. Wright, West Mifflin

I read the book two weeks ago. I saw the movie last night. It has great special effects and action.

It does leave some holes that the book covered. It doesn't show Peter struggling to take off the costume until the night at the church. (In the book, it gets progressively more difficult for him to take it off.) It also has a huge gap about the Sandman. In the book, it has Sandman going to a doctor to get a cure for his daughter and the cure requiring a great deal of money, which is why he is stealing.

The movie never explains why he is stealing. In the book, the Sandman's child and wife come to the fight and beg him to stop and he does. This explains why Peter forgives him. The movie doesn't show any of this.

Big holes. Also, the movie is so long, that my date actually fell asleep on my shoulder at the packed movie theatre. So much for all that action. I did like the cameos by Sam Rami and Stan Lee, though. I'd give it a 2.5 out of 4.

-- Heath Horvat, Las Vegas, Nev.

I thought the movie story line was awful, he cried during most of the movie, sorry but i don't want a superhero to be a sniveling little whimp. Bad call. However, the special effects were good.
-- Pam, Pittsburgh

I agree with most of the critics. Too many plots and too many villains. It did have great special effects and great fight scenes. My 5 year old son loved it.

-- Danielle, Crafton, Pa.