Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Ahhh the integral second part in the franchise building process. Can it live up to the first, & possibly exceed expectations by being better than the original? It's a good bet, because watching the original Spider-Man for the first time was a wondrous experience. Repeated viewings, not so kind. After you get over the comic book amazement, you realize the movie is merely average. So, Spider-Man 2 should be either way worse than the first, or way better.
Starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, the secret identity of Spider-Man, the sequel brings us back to New York City, back to where it all began, lo those two years ago. When last we saw Parker, he was at a funeral for his good friend Harry Osborn's (James Franco) father, who died fighting Spider-Man as the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). He had just left the side of the lovely Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), because he felt that she would never be safe with him.
Pretty emo stuff, no? So now we're in present day (I guess) NYC, Spidey's still swingin', but he's been having doubts about himself lately. Leading that ol' double life just isn't as fulfilling as it used to be. It's affecting Peter's school work, his ability to hold down a job, & eventually even his Spidey powers. Meanwhile, his tenuous friendship with Harry becomes even more strained, Mary Jane has enough of his flakiness, & Peter can barely pay his own bills.
Truth be told, if I had super-powers, I'd become a villain first, steal enough money to get outta debt, then stage a fight where as a new hero, I destroyed the old villain. Pretty sweet justice there. Anyways, the villain of this piece is a mad scientist named Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), who becomes fused to four mechanical super-intelligent arms through a lab accident (isn't that always the way?). Octavius becomes Doctor Octopus, or Doc Ock, because it's catchier & way easier to say.
The bright lights of this movie are J. Jonah Jameson's (the always underrated J.K. Simmons) hysterical & non-fact based rants about Spidey's supposed criminal activities, & Molina's charming Doc Ock. It's a comic book, so take that for what it's worth.
There were a couple things I didn't enjoy about the movie. One, the Christ scene in the train actually made me feel a little uncomfortable. Deliberate iconography is a touchy subject, with very few successes in my books. In fact, the only one I can think of off the top of my head that worked, was in another comic book movie, The Crow.
The other is the seeming randomness of Doc Ock's arms. Are they strong enough to produce Jurassic Park-like rumblings, or can he manuever about stealthily, like Stephen?
All in all, it IS a better movie than the first Spider-Man, with a few, shall we say, KINKS to work out. I love Bruce Campbell, he's fantastic & it's great that you're giving your old friends some work, Sam Raimi. But you don't have to resort to Kevin Smith Syndrome & potentially take people out of a movie feel just to get in a cameo appearance. & all the inside jokes are great, as long as you don't resort to Andy Kaufman Syndrome, wherein only three people (or in this case three million fanboys) get the joke & the rest of us are smiling & nodding. I'm going to go with 4 outta 5. I still think I like Superman 2 better.
Roger Ebert's review of Spider-Man 2 (2004)