I suppose it is inevitable that Spider-Man II couldn't possibly match with the hype established by its $400 million counterpart. Not to say that II is a complete bore -- it's a frolicking good time for fans when it wants to be. Elsewhere, it is a battle between characters to see who can say the most ironic thing. Other scenes pose a possible speculation as to where future installments are going, but within this particular story they seem out of place.
These days, Spider-Man is still fighting the good fight, attempting to balance his life as a student with his life as a superhero. Some of the best scenes here involve those two lifestyles clashing, such as Peter Parker using Spidey's powers to deliver a pizza on time, or performing a daring rescue without his powers.
Now, even Peter's "best friends" relationship with Mary Jane is going straight into Double Jeopardy because he can't seem to get to her plays on time. He's having weird fantasies about rejecting Uncle Ben's "great power" speech. Harry's all on his ass about the whole Spider-Man photograph connection. And of course, Doctor Octavius is out exploiting his right to bear arms. But worst of all, Peter's web-slinging ability has been suffering from the sporadic backfire.
So that's it, he says. I am Spider-Man no more. Cue the montage of happy Peter moments. No, in all seriousness I thought that worked out nicely. When Peter watches a couple squad cars go blaring by, he watches for a second, then takes a bite of his hot dog and turns around. It's enough to make anyone happy for him. Of course, Peter's newfangled honesty in this regard garners mixed results with Mary Jane, as well as his Aunt May.
What happens in the end is for you to find out, but there really are no huge surprises. I can't help but feel that they let too much happen in Spider-Man II. It looks like director Sam Raimi might have had a time trying to figure out how to put all these different pieces together. He captures the atmosphere and daring style of the first Spider-Man flawlessly. But now, there is little left to speculate about in forthcoming sequels except for villains and a lot of mad guessing.
The fights are nothing short of spectacular, everywhere from a bank vault to the top of a moving train to a clock tower. Even when Peter and Octavius are exchanging blows in mid-air, it looks more convincing than when Neo and Agent Smith did the same. The last battle between the two might be a bit underwhelming.
Tobey Maguire is at the top of his game when the action gets heavy, and he has some nice chemistry with Alfred Molina while the guy's still "just a scientist". It is in the scenes with his friends and especially Aunt May that he seems extremely bored, and has to resort to that squinty-eyed "I love this person" look.
Kirsten Dunst is a bit up from her performance in the first movie. Her character's reactions are harder and more complicated to pull off, but she really is the star of the show here, along with...
Alfred Molina. Can't say I'm familiar with his work prior to this, but he has such a demanding and intimidating presence that as a man, his respect is invaluable, but as a villain, well, you know what not to be doing. He was just as great and menacing as I thought he'd be, even though the story does keep him "out of the way" for most of the second half.
Rosemary Harris is captivating as Aunt May, and gets a chance to land a blow on the Ock herself. With an umbrella no less. James Franco plays what I figure a lot of people were hoping Anakin Skywalker would turn out to be. Too bad that his part of the story is pretty much set on the back burner until very late in the movie. J.K. Simmons is almost as funny as he was the first time around.
There are a few points which are genuinely touching, many of which happen between Peter and MJ, but my favorite was a slight mimicry of the first movie in which the citizens of NY help out an overexerted Spidey. Hopefully, this will become commonplace in the future installments.
On the other hand, there is also a lot of wasted space. When Spider-Man's abilities start backfiring, the result is a couple of (funny) falls and that's it. MJ's subplot with John Jameson seems terribly contrived. Daniel Gillies does just fine as John, but aside from his being the news guy's son, you never hear much of anything about how MJ met him or why she loves him. It seems like a cheap way of keeping MJ "unattainable" so that the No-More-Spider-Man thing doesn't work out.
So much of the film is beating us over the head with how tough Peter's got it. Most of his problems, like his grades, are only temporarily resolved while he's free of his power. Or they just never get resolved, such as Peter's financial troubles with his landlord among others. Which of course begs the question of why he ever moved away from Aunt May in the first place. Sure looks like she could've used that rent money, not to mention protection. Even when nobody knows that Peter = Spidey, everyone knows he is connected through the photographs, so the anonymity doesn't do much good as is made abundantly obvious here.
In the end, I guess I had just anticipated a few more cliffhangers, but the biggest one left now is basically the same cliffhanger the first movie left us with. Only a few changes have occurred, which of course I can't spoil here.
I still think if you're a fan, this is well worth the money. Doc Ock is a far scarier villain than the Green Goblin was, and the fight sequences are just out of this world. Character development is also a plus, even if most of what you "learn", you already knew. All I'm sayin' is, don't stand in line for a half hour if you can handle waiting a week!
Sam Raimi's follow-up to SPIDER-MAN finds Peter Parker Tobey Maguire struggling to balance his everyday life with his alter ego as the web-slinging su...More at Family Video
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