Spider-Man 3: The Continuity Cut

Congratulations on the work, the film has a much better rhythm. My favorite cut is the excellent work done in the bar dancing scene with Gwen and the cut of the fight between Peter and Harry, I always thought their fight at Osborn's house was better resolved.

This edit is a solid improvement over the original, eliminating the useless jokes and controversial plot elements as much as possible.
With the Uncle Ben death retcon gone, now Sandman looks like a guy who only had bad luck at finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time (even though the parting ways with Spider-Man doesn't have the same effect as in the theatrical version, he's still one of the strongest characters).
The cuts are seamless and very well made; overall, this is my new definitive version of Spider-Man 3 and the closest thing to the solid conclusion we could've had if Sony hadn't interfered with the movie.

A great edit that gives the movie a very different narrative compared to the original, and achieves what it set out to do in streamlining the plot and restoring continuity with the earlier movies in the series.

The edits are of a very high technical standard, and extremely impressive considering that DonkeyKonga only had the retail material to work with.

The only scene that didn’t work for me was the final interaction between Sandman and Spider-man. With the uncle Ben plot now gone, the viewer is left wondering why Spider-man is so emotional and ignoring Harry’s predicament, while the whole forgiveness aspect is now out of context.

I had hoped the edit would cut out the silly dance in the street scene, but alas it survived. In my opinion, we don’t need Dr Conners to spell out the obvious about the symbiote’s nature – it’s clear for all to see! So for me, it makes that whole segment with the dance, Dr Conners phone call and Ursula’s cookies an easy choice for removal. Anyhow, it’s not a deal breaker, as I removed it myself. So, now it goes from the fade out following the explosion on Harry, to Sandman’s daughter on the bench.

On the audio/visual side of things, the video quality is excellent and encoded at a high bitrate. The audio, however, was lacking for me. Being fortunate to have a high-end home cinema setup, I really missed the lossless soundtrack, especially with subwoofer activity. I realise licensing constraints mean encoding the audio in lossless Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA is not possible, but I’d happily take the lossless sound in raw PCM or FLAC format. It could even be offered as a standalone extra, requiring users to mux the audio themselves.

Overall, I really enjoyed this cut and was thoroughly impressed by its technical merits. Well done to DonkeyKonga and thank you very much for your efforts.

This is a great edit of a very confused movie.
Rather than spend the entirety of this review etching out a lengthy diatribe against the original film and everything it stands for, I'm going to focus on the good that this edit does, and point out some of the bad.

First things first, this edit went a long way in fixing the films pacing, and it does so in a mostly natural way, which is par for the course from DonkeyKonga. Kudos to the editor, as he really has a keen sense of what is superfluous to the narrative, and what is necessary.
I've always thought that the new goblins amnesia was the dumbest part of the original film. From the get go, I always had the impression that Harry was faking his memory loss. This edit smartly excises the whole pointless rabbit chase and lets the audience know Harry is faking from the get go.
It's been a while since I've seen Spiderman 3 so I was amazed-absolutely amazed- at how well the Sandman being the murderer of Ben Parker subplot was removed. You legit cant tell it was ever in.
These two edits serve to really reduce the bloat on this mess of a movie.
The Peter Harry fight worked REMARKABLY well as the introductory scene for the new goblin. I was absolutely amazed by the way that worked, and it was the best part of the edit for me.

I really appreciate that DonkeyKonga kept the Bully Peter arc mostly in its entirety. A lot of editors take that out, in turn taking the heart out of the entire movie and making it an irredeemable piece of comic book pablum. To me, the Peter MJ stuff is the backbone of this movie, the shining diamond within the cow excrement which is everything else here.
I do wish he would have kept Pete playing the piano though. Its a climactic moment for the only story that matters here, come on!

Now, this leads me to the only issues I have with the edit, and they are marginal issues at worst.
We could benefit from a teeny tiny bit more implying that Harry is faking his amnesia. Dont get me wrong, its perfectly understandable here to a remarkable degree, but I cant help but think like two little things would highlight harry's deviousness more.

First off after Harrys scene at the opening of the film and during the transition to the night sky which MJ and Peter are staring at, it would be really cool if we heard some kind of scream from Harry, like hes faking an injury. As it stands, the audience has no hint as to what Harry did to get in the hospital. A scream from Harry when the scene transitions to the night sky would be perfect.

Second, when harry is in the hospital bed and we see him smile after Peter leaves it would really serve the scene if, for like 1 more second we freeze framed on harry's face and then cross-faded to the next scene. Add a foreboding string at his smile and it would improve the moment immensely. As it stands, it comes across as pointlessly subtle. We dont need subtlety there. The audience is in on harrys plot, and just one second longer on Harrys face with a foreboding sound would alert the audience to speculate as to what exactly his scheme is.

Another issue with the narrative as it stands, when watching this, I couldnt help but wonder where the symbiote is for the first half of the film. I would be very interested to see an edit where earlier in the film, Pete takes the symbiote to Dr Connors, then later in the film Pete adopts the symbiote after being rejected by MJ. The DR Connors sequence felt almost tacked on with how late it came into the film. It would be much more cohesive for the plot and effective at showing Peters state of mind if Pete takes the symbiote to Dr Connors shortly after the parade, and THEN later in the film, after MJ rejects him he succombs to it. This would show just how much Peter has lost it.

Finally, the one scene that felt awkward in the narrative as it stands is the part at the end with the Sandman. Nothing was truncated or poorly edited about it mind you. Mainly it just lasted WAY too long. Just 15 seconds being shaved off that sequence at the end would go a long way. As it stands, Peter spends more time with the Sandman, with whom he now has no narrative connection, than he does his best friend HARRY. Harrys literally dying PETE! It made me really annoyed at peter, with how long he was just... standing.... there.... crying. With the way this edit works there was no need for that scene to last that long.

As always , this is just my opinion. If you read the changelist and those changes sound remotely sufficient for you, then I cant recommend this edit highly enough

EDIT: Subsequent to this review, the editor DonkeyKonga made two subtle but important changes to this edit which really put it over the top.
He added the subtle scene change with Harry in the hospital which I suggested, and it really works wonders.
It feels like it was written into the script.
He also changed the credits song, and this is a small change but trust me, when you see it it really works magic on the overall narrative of the film.
I've now amended my review with a higher score.

I WILL NEVER WATCH THE ORIGINAL AGAIN