Thumbs up - and down - for "Spider-Man 3"

Well, the reviews for “Spider-Man 3” are coming in, and they’re definitely a mixed bag.

Christy Lemire of The Associated Press calls the movie “a bloated, uneven behemoth.” But Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe says, “(Director Sam) Raimi, who shares script credit with his brother Ivan and Alvin Sargent, strikes an exquisite balance between pop and woe, drama and whooshing adventure.”

The view of Robert Butler of McClatchy Newspapers: “It’s not awful, as comic book movies go. The special effects are solid and there are a few laughs. But the thing that made the first two ‘Spider-Mans’ so memorable — the way we empathized with geeky Every Man Peter Parker and his travails — is missing here. Where the other films had heart, this one seems to be just going through the motions, tying up loose ends before bowing out.”

And of Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: “Certainly acceptable as a sequel to a sequel, ‘Spider-Man 3’ misses an opportunity to be a movie that could be wholeheartedly recommended to those not already ensnared in its web.”

An ecstatic review from Forrest Hartman, Reno Gazette-Journal: “Action, romance, melodrama and music all have a place in writer-director Sam Raimi’s delightfully inventive romp, giving comic book fans the best - and most daring - Spider-Man film to date.”