I think you’re being a little too harsh John by referring to S3 as “a giant pile of shit”. I have now tried watching Superman Returns several times on cable as of late and that may possibly be one of the worst superhero movies ever made.

Spiderman 3 has better action scenes, entertaining effects, is well shot and well acted. Transformers is the most boring movie I’ve seen in years. Michael Bay cant edit his effects scenes into an entertaning sequence, and when the robots are not on screen we have unentertaing unfunny scenes that go nowhere. if you think that Peter Parker being a hep cat isnt funny, but the comic relief in Transformers is, then we are just nowhere near the same page.

“Awesome action, great humor, iconic characters and huge bang for your buck entertainment.”
The only way to consider any of the characters ‘iconic’ is because they were iconic going in already. There is no personality to any characte rin that film whatsoever, save maybe Sam, who was an asshole, and his parents, who were just goofy and annoying.

Transformers is bar none the worst film of 2007, and there is no good long defense of it besides “i can ignore 2 hours of shit for 30 minutes of mediocre action” – Transformers has been given a free pass for so many flaws whilst SPiderman 3 was raked over the coals over the most minor details.

If you want to call the theater response as evidence of greatness consider I saw Scary Movie in the theaters and the crowd went crazy for it. that doesnt mean they’re right. it just means theres a shitload of wrong thinkers in one place. I mean, if we want to call on authories, all my friends are Transformers fans, and gearheads. in fact one of them DRAWS for the Transformers comics, and they certainly didnt walk away with the same reaction you did. But I wouldnt use them as my best case against the film. The best case against the film is onscreen with Michael Bays shitty direction, casting, and editing.

I think Sam Raimi is much like Paul Verhoeven. They both have a cheese factor quality to their directing that they add to all their movies. However this cheese factor does work in every film.

Peter jackson from brain dead to lotr worked
raimi from ED to spiderman is a failure

it was easy for Bay to get TF right as there was no previous live-action giant robot film to compare it to.
let’s see how well a franchise TF is by the time it reaches installment number 3.

SM3 sucked a lot of ass to a lot of people due to the fact that it followed on from the bar-raising SM2. Batman Begins came close to touching that bar but not quite. we’ll see how Nolan does with the Dark Knight as his follow on before we make comparisons to Raimi’s first two SM outings.

personally i would rather Raimi move on from SM if he continues to get interference from the suits like he did on 3. there was to be no Gwen or Eddie had Raimi had HIS way. he did what he could under the circumstances. it’s no secret Raimi is a spiderfoe classicist.
i heard nobody complaining about Doc Ock or the Green Goblin. or even about the awesome Sandman FX. if Sam’s way wasnt broken,there was no reason for Arad & co to try & fix it.