Violence/Gore: No blood, but Doc Ock and his arms do murder quite a few people, including an entire room filled with hospital staff. And Spidey’s suit goes through some wear and tear again too, as does Peter himself.

Sex/Nudity: They do manage to get Kirsten Dunst’s dress wet again, only this time she’s tied up in Doc Ock’s riverside lair…if that’s your idea of a good time.

Best Line: “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Score:

(Originally published on the
Scoop e-newsletter website)

I was so ambivalent about the first Spider-Man movie that at times I wondered what might be wrong with me. After all, Spidey was my number one childhood hero, and I’d waited a lifetime to see a theatrical version of the web-slinger. Here at last was the film I’d wanted to see for so long…and it just didn’t grab me. I thought it was well made; it captured so much about the character and his universe with accuracy and style; and it had an epic quality that definitely ensured its place in history as one of the finest comic book adaptations ever filmed. But when I walked out of the theater, I just felt…nothing in particular.

I eventually came to accept the fact that perhaps for me, it was just too late. My Spider-Man movie should have been made years ago. I was just too old now to really appreciate the leap to the big screen in that deeply emotional way that I always anticipated. Although I could recognize intellectually that it was a great movie, it didn’t reach my heart.

And then I saw the first trailer for Spider-Man 2. In the space of a few short minutes, I felt the old affection for the character’s glory days rekindled, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was it - this was the Spider-Man movie I’d waited a lifetime to see. Maybe it was because the first film had to spend too much time dealing with his origin and setting up the characters and locales that mainstream audiences wouldn’t know but with which I was very familiar. What I wanted most was to join Pete in the middle of that glorious early Romita era when everything was already in place - job, school, Aunt May, girlfriend, cheap motorbike, and lots of the ol’ Parker luck running true to form - and this movie looked like it was going to deliver. So despite years of writing about comics and movies and trying to develop a resistance to emotionally influenced high expectations, I went to Spider-Man 2 with the highest expectations I’ve ever had for a feature film experience.

It met every one of them - and then it surpassed them. And no one could have been more surprised and delighted than I.

Spider-Man 2 is a tour de force of comic book adventure storytelling, but most especially it is a two-hour-plus love letter to the greatest period in Spider-Man’s comic book career. It has the continuing strength of the love story and realistically portrayed characters that made the first film less a fanboy actionfest and more a gender-crossing half-a-billion history-making hit. In addition to that powerful grounding, however, the sequel isn’t afraid to veer into over-the-top theatrics when it suits the story, because every time it does, the moment still grows out of a genuinely human emotion. How many people would expect to watch a climactic Bondian fight sequence in which the villain proclaims that nothing can stop him now, and completely understand the heartache and passion that has led the man to that otherwise laughably melodramatic exclamation?

Rest assured, no one in the audience was laughing when Doc Ock was savagely killing hospital staff (in a scene that director Sam Raimi stages as a direct homage to his classic Evil Dead series - fans will love this bit) or threatening the life of Mary Jane in a fashion so akin to Snidely Whiplash villainy (a role Alfred “Doc Ock” Molina himself essayed in 1999’s Dudley Do-Right) that it should have provoked a giggle or two. But everybody let loose when a temporarily powerless Peter Parker decided to give up the Spider-suit and walked briskly and happily through a sunlit New York to the strains of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” Clearly, Raimi and company knew exactly when and how to balance the drama and humor, and the results are extremely satisfying. Oh, and watch for an incredibly post-modern real-world in-joke about Maguire’s infamous back trouble prior to the start of shooting on this sequel.

Comic book fans are notoriously meticulous in their examination of a film adaptation. Has it accurately presented the material? What did they change? Why did they change it? The first film drew ire early on for the decision to make Parker’s webbing organic rather than an artificially formulated compound, but you don’t hear much complaining about that anymore because the change was just so logical. In Spider-Man 2, there are so many loving visual and verbal touches to classic Spider-lore that it’s almost dizzying, and when alterations are made - such as in the absolutely brilliant redesign, both conceptually and physically, of Doc Ock’s tentacles - they are so in the spirit of the original material’s intentions that you wonder why Stan, Steve and Johnny didn’t do it that way in the first place. There’s even a segment of the film that pays homage to several famous story arcs in which stress and/or illness robbed Peter of his powers, leading to two supremely gratifying visual tributes that recapture the final page of Amazing Spider-Man #50 and the cover of #113 (a Doc Ock story). For a short time in this film, Peter decides he will be “Spider-Man No More!” You just gotta love it, True Believers.

But one of the most overt ways in which the movies depart from their comic book source material has also become one of the film series’ greatest strengths. In the “classic” period of the Ditko/early Romita years, Spider-Man was largely vilified by the entire city of New York, from the police to the average man in the street. Jameson hadn’t just labeled the man a menace and a monster - he’d succeeded in embedding that image of Spidey in the minds of almost every city dweller, even his Aunt May!

Flash forward to the release of Spider-Man, the first enormous superhero blockbuster to arrive post-9/11. As many fans know, at least one scene was altered to reflect the unity and brotherhood Americans felt for each other and particularly toward the city of New York following the tragic events of that date. When the Goblin attacks Spidey as he dangles from the bridge, New Yorkers throw things at the villain and proclaim that “you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!” From the start, it’s clear that Spider-Man has not been rejected by the city but embraced by it. Spider-Man is no monster to them; he’s just another New Yorker and a beloved hero to boot.

That alteration, a true bit of fannish wish fulfillment distilled through our country’s renewed patriotic bond, is given an even more moving showcase in the sequel. When Spidey is left without his mask and knocked unconscious after a harrowing sequence involving a runaway train, the passengers bring him inside and smile at their unmasked (!) savior. But no worries. They tell him they won’t reveal his secret; they’re just glad to have him back after his stress-induced sabbatical. Any old Spider-fan who doesn’t start bawling at this point just isn’t human, and it also speaks to the power that this movie series will continue to hold for all the moviegoers who have reinvested in Spider-Man as a 21st century hero for the “new” America. Stan’s ‘Everyman’ soldiers on.

The people on the train may promise to keep Peter’s secret, but it’s already out big-time in the last third of this film. Almost everyone close to him learns the truth, and what took four decades in the comics is accomplished beautifully in just four hours of film time (counting both movies). MJ and Peter are going to try to make it work, superhero gig or no superhero gig. And while I waited in vain for Mary Jane to say the immortal “Face it tiger…” line in that last scene, a slightly less effective “Go get ‘em tiger” was almost as satisfying.

As with all middle chapters, the conclusion of this film sets up a number of plot developments that clearly point the way to the conflicts our happy hero will face in the third installment. A surprise cameo in one last scene provides a strong link to the first film and suggests that a dark destiny lies ahead for Harry Osborn (something Spider-fans know only too well). Aunt May intimates very strongly that even she knows about Pete’s double life. And even as MJ watches Pete swing back into action as Spider-Man at the end - a moment that had the fanboy in me tearing up for a second time - the music subtly changes from triumphant to foreboding. Will this relationship face its greatest challenge in two years’ time when Spider-Man 3 hits theaters?

You better believe it, bunky! And guess who’ll be first in line on opening night?

ATB