There was really no point in having that guy in there besides the fact that Raimi is more partial to the old school villians than the newer crop. Raimi does well developing Peter and Harry throughout the film, and even shows Brock's mental/emotional corruption leading up to his transformation to Venom. But Sandman stays one dimensional the whole time and Thomas Hayden Church was only in like 5 scenes. A waste of a paycheck and CGI money that could have been spent on something else. He could have given Peter another reason for wanting revenge, like something happening to Aunt May, to push the symbiote story along. Whether Raimi wants to admit it or not, he made a Venom movie and should have just embraced that. Introduce Venom earlier and make him exponentially stronger so Peter still needs Harry's help, then you have a tighter story and a flick more on par with the first two. Or Raimi could have taken Sandman and developed him more as a character. Either way, Spidey 3 got a lot closer to the 90's Batman franchise territory than I was comfortable with.

All in all, I did enjoy it, especially the symbiote Spidey/Peter moments. I was so happy when he finally popped MJ in the face and I was rolling when he punked Harry. Speaking of the Harry shit, he was absolutely diabolical with his schemes once he got his memory back! That 'I'm fucking your broad' smile once Pete crossed the street was priceless. Cold bloooodeeed!