Wow. This is so funny. My friend saw this on Friday night, and he absolutely hated it. He's an artist, film-maker, and writer--very much a storyteller. From a story-telling perspective, he said it was awful. Apparently the entire audience he was with hated it too. No one believed the characters or lines, and a few times people even said, "Oh, come on, you have to be kidding me!" From the way he described it, it sounded like a movie full of cliches and bad acting. He said they used every cheat in storytelling--amnesia, "chance" coincidences, sudden love triangles, and resurrecting a villian (Peter's uncle's killer--the fact that it became "really someone else" is irrelevant).
Now I may have to see it myself. Paul, my friend, loved both of the first movies. He was really looking forward to this. I didn't want to go on the opening night--he went with other people. So, it was a huge disappointment to him.
But you two really liked it. So, I'll have to see it and decide for myself. However, after hearing Paul's description, I'm going to wait for the DVD. It's not worth $9.50 to me to risk it--because everything he said were things I worried about just from the preview.