my review
Spider-man 2review by Kushmeer "Xmenfan/Slave4buffy" Farakhan
Allow me to get cheesy for a minute. Achem[clearing throat]. Spider-man, Spider-man, be in a superior sequal? No, he can't unfortunately.
As many readers who are familiar with either myself or my movie reviews knows, i'm a huge fan of comic books and comic book films, Spider-man being my 2nd favorite character after a certain Dark Knight Detective. I was a huge fan of the first film as well. While most fans were split on their opinion of the first film, I loved just about every aspect of it. I lot of people didn't like The Green Goblin and the cgi but I dug the Goblin and Willem Dafoe's portrayal of him, feeling he was an totally faithful version of the comic. The cgi...eh, it was okay, not Star Wars prequal bad or anything so i was fine with it on the whole.Spider-man 2 is an whole other issue entirely though. It's problems are far more than I anticipated but on the whole it's still an enjoyable film.
Spider-man2 picks up about 2 years after the first film ended. Peter Parker(Tobey Maguire) is still struggling to make ends meet by taking pictures of Spider-man for the Daily Bugle and now delivering pizzas . He's also, of course, still swinging through the city, fighting crime as Spider-man. Peter's friend Harry Osborn(James Franco) has replaced his father as one of the heads of Oscorp and is funding an fusion experiment to be conducted by new character(and later, villain) Dr. Otto Octavius aka Dr. Octopus(Alfred Molina). Peter's longtime love, Mary Jane(Kirsten Dunst) has become an accomplished stage actress and parttime model and is engaged to the son of Peter's newspaper boss, J. Jonah Jameson(J.K. Simmons). The crux of the film's plot stems from Peter wanting to quit his life as Spider-man in order to have a chance at normality with Mary Jane and at the same time, fend of Dr. Octopus who has 4 mechanical arms attached to him after the fusion experiment goes awry. Can Spider-man stop Doc Ock and still find a way to retain Mary Jane's heart before it's too late?
Okay, the biggest problem I have with the film is it's pacing. While the first film, flowed smoothly from point A to Point B(parker gets powers, uncle ben dies, parker is spidey, green goblin attacks, etc.), Spidey 2 seems to go from point A back to well...point A. For example, parker continuously trieds to convince Mary Jane that he cares about her and isn't missing her Play performances on purpose. Now this would be okay for a scene or two, but it's like EVERY OTHER SCENE! I'm not joking, every other scene, is Peter struggling with his love for Mary Jane and trying to tell her that he's Spider-man. The film is just too damn repetitive at times for it's own good. Not just repetetive, but slow. My main problem with the Hulk(other than i felt it was a little high on it's own sense of importance. I mean, that speech Nolte gave at the end? Drivel.) was that it was slllllllowwwwwwwwww at times. Spidey 2, in some parts, is slower.
The other problem with the film is that Octopus just doesn't have the presence that the Goblin has. Is he less silly to look at? Yes, but he's just not as great a villain. That's not to take away from Molina's performance. Molina IS Doc Ock in the same way that Maguire is Spidey and Dafoe is the Goblin. Spot on portrayal of the comic character for Molina. But he's just not in the movie that much and you never really feel that his plans are gonna succeed either.
For those expecting an slam bam action fest, prepare to lower your expectations. There are about 4 actiony scenes in the film, only one of them being anything amazing(the train scene) and even that one ends in silliness(i'll just put it this way. Spider-man has a mask for a reason. He seems to have forgotten what that reason is, just like Batman did in his film series.)
Now for the positive. The performances are still very good. Maguire is good as he was in the first film, and James Franco is simply excellant as Harry Osborn this time. I can't wait to see where his character goes in part3(though i pretty much already know. Nerd that I am.). Alfred Molina kicks all kinds of ass as Doc Ock and Rosemary Harris and J.K.Simmons do another good turn as Aunt May and J.J. Jameson again. The weakest link to me is Kirsten Dunst. I don't think it's really her fault though. I never would've made her Mary Jane in the first film. I always thought this was Alicia Witt's role but cest la vie'.
Another thing I loved about the film was some of the dialogue between characters. Octopus has the best lines in the film(speeches and one liners were great) and there are extraordinarily cool exchanges btw Harry and Peter and Peter and Aunt May(that one almost made me cry).
Lastly, there are the action scenes which are overall better directed than the first film, though only half of them to me, have any real bite. The train fight was amazing(but ended stupidly) and although not actual fight scenes, Doc Ock's origin and his subsequent hospital escape were some of the coolest scenes i've seen in any comic book film.
To wrap things up, Spider-man 2 is a good enough sequal that furthers the storyline of all of it's characters but ultimatly is a bit dissapointing in regards to pacing and a few other elements. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good movie but I strongly urge everyone to lower their expectations some. IMO, X2 is still the stronges marvel sequal. Spidey has nothing on em'. Maybe part 3 will.
9.25/10
4.25/5 movieman's site.