Everyone hates Spider-Man 3 for the wrong reason

polygon.com:

For 17 years have I carried this, the heaviest of burdens: knowing that everyone was wrong about a movie. I shouldered this hardship as nobly as I could, knowing that there are people in the world who have it much harder than I (Stargate fans, probably). Yet injustice must be answered not with silence, but with truth. And here it is: For almost 20 years, everyone has been wrong about Spider-Man 3.

Sam Raimi’s 2007 sequel to the best superhero movie ever made has been on an interesting journey through the years. The film was immediately seen as the lesser entry in Raimi’s pretty spectacular trilogy, and that’s still a fair assessment. (Again: Spider-Man 2 is the best.) But more recently, its reputation has grown, as fans’ knee-jerk dislike of the film’s goofball sensibilities and uncool take on a dark Peter Parker has leveled out into an appreciation for what Raimi was doing, and the big-hearted sweetness of his version of the character.

This is a good thing. There is a lot to love about Spider-Man 3, and Tobey Maguire’s dancing was never the problem that a million late-2000s memes made it out to be. The real problem was much bigger, and far less superficial: It made Uncle Ben’s death not Peter Parker’s fault.

Spider-Man 3 kicks off its entire emotional arc with a retcon, as Peter learns that new villain Flint Marko/The Sandman is in fact his uncle’s real killer, and that the thief from the first film was merely his accomplice. This revelation sends Peter in a rage spiral that makes him susceptible to the alien costume that attempts to bond with him, and causes him to nearly destroy all of his personal relationships.

I understand how a storyteller would get here, and why they would want to do this. I just happen to think it is a disastrous choice for a story about basically any version of Peter Parker. More than the spider bite, more than the costume, more than “with great power there must also come great responsibility,” the fundamental truth about Peter Parker