I loved the first Spider-Man movie and when it recently came
on HBO I watched it again and again from different places. I
liked the storytelling, the humor and the action sequences. In
the sequel, creatively titled Spider-Man 2, all of those elements
were present once again, as was a much better and more fully
realized villain in Doctor Octopus.
When the movie starts, it is two years later and while Peter
Parker’s friends Mary-Jane and Harry are moving up in the
world, Peter is stuck delivering pizzas and flunking college,
as his duties as a hero in the city that never sleeps keeps him
very, very busy. It takes a while for the movie to get going,
but once it does, it takes the audience on a very satisfying
ride.
Doctor Octopus, played by Alfred Molina, is one of the most
entertaining things in the movie. His mechanical tentacles are
like four giant anacondas, each with a mind of its own and hell-bent
on destruction and power. They move alarmingly fast and create
all sorts of mayhem. Every sequence with Doc Ock and his arms
is brilliant, haunted house -like fun. The only complaint may
be that viewers want more of Doc Ock and less of Peter’s
struggles on whether to be or not to be Spider-Man. Toby Maguire
plays both Parker and Spiderman amiably, making both characters
an underdog of sorts and hard not to root for.
All of the performances are fine - though Kirsten Dunst’s
Mary Jane Watson and James Franco’s Harry Osborn don’t
have too much to do. Mary Jane stays peeved at Peter for jilting
her for much of the film and Harry is peeved at Peter for not
revealing Spider-Man’s identity, so that he can exact revenge
on the hero for killing his father. One of the bright stars in
the film is J.K. Simmons’ J.J. Jameson, the editor of the
Daily Bugle. His is a great character full of venomous humor.
Hopefully, he will play an even bigger role in upcoming installments.
Sam Raimi once again did an excellent job as director and it
appeared that he had a lot of fun with this film. Raimi began
his career with campy horror films like “Evil Dead” and
the much better “Evil Dead II” and one can see Raimi
returning to his roots in some of the film’s sequences and
having a blast. It is hard to tell whether I liked this installment
better than the first one and I’m afraid I won’t know
until well in the future - after multiple viewings. I can highly
recommend this movie though - it was a lot of fun and well deserving
of it’s assured box office success.
