5) Sandman Killed Uncle Ben
Anyone remember that bit in Scream 3 where the rules of threequels are laid out? Jamie Kennedy’s character explains that one of the tropes of threequels goes that new information will come to light that completely flips the established rules of the movie series on its head.
Well, director Sam Raimi and his writing team apparently took this mocking deconstruction as a rule book when making Spider-Man 3. Notoriously, in a lazy bit of retconning, it’s revealed that Flint Marko AKA Sandman is the true killer of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben and not that random carjacker from the first movie. Apparently, the police have known this for a while but, whoops, it slipped their minds to let the Parkers know.
To be fair to the film, Sandman’s portrayal is actually surprisingly tragic and effective, but the reveal of his past crimes feels forced and a little illogical. With his best friend Harry Osborn turning evil and being infected by the Venom symbiote, there were enough problems in Spidey’s life to deal with in the movie without adding in this extra complication.