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| Spider-Man 2
Directed By: Sam Raimi Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
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| Peter Parker's having a rough time. His double life as the superhero Spider-Man is having a devastating impact on his civilian life. Things are so bad he declares that he's quitting, and never putting on the suit again. However, his sense of duty forces him to become a hero again when the brilliant scientist Dr. Otto Octavius is deformed in an accident and becomes Dr. Octopus. With four metal tentacles sticking out of his back, he'll prove to be a more than worthy opponent for Spider-Man. [TRAILER] A different Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) inhabits this blockbuster sequel. No longer the starry-eyed, confident teenager assured of victory, this Spider-Man is one who worries, loses faith in his super powers, sees his lover slip away and takes a beating. Yes, this time around Spider-Man’s alter ego, Peter Parker, is a real human being, overwhelmed with feelings of uncertainty, fear, guilt, anger and love. He is the kind of hero we can all identify with because he is not perfect, and he is the kind of friend we root for because he has a good heart and means well. If the first film showed us just what this CG creation could do, part two shows that there is indeed a heart beating beneath the effects. “Spider-Man 2” finds Parker as a broke college student whose alter-ego is systematically ruining his life. Because he is Spider-Man, he is late to work, loses his job as a pizza deliveryman and lives with the knowledge that he cannot help his broke Aunt May (Rosemary Harris). While off capturing gunmen, he misses Mary Jane’s (Kirsten Dunst) star performance in a play, making it that much easier for her to fall in love with another man. And because he must return to making money by pawning photographs of this famous arachnid, he alienates friend Harry (James Franco), whose insane father was killed by Spider-Man in the first installment. Parker realized his gift was a curse in the first film, but here we sense for the first time the depths of his isolation and confusion. Three times in the story, returning director Sam Raimi interjects asides of quiet reflection in which Parker, alone, is shown empty-handed, lost, staring out windows and asking questions like “What am I supposed to do?” His nemesis this time around exists with an equal level of depth and complexity. Doctor Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) is a scientist, hired by Harry’s company to master the art of fusion and reap the profits of a Nobel Prize. But something goes disastrously wrong in a test and the four robotic arms Octavius connects to his nervous system for the experiment become permanently fused to his spinal chord. They have control over his body, and commit themselves to building a new fusion machine which will likely destroy the city. And what a city it is. A vivid landscape of colors, lights and shadows, and comprised of memorable characters such as Parker’s arrogant and boorish newspaper editor, his angry landlord and his Aunt May, the world of “Spider-Man 2” is expansive and alive. Raimi has refined his approach here. This is not a movie about duels, superheroes or special effects. It is about inner conflicts that believably play themselves out through showdowns and tests of will. Parker is conflicted between a carefree life of ignorant bliss and a noble life of assured loneliness. Mary Jane is conflicted between superficial attraction and genuine love. Octavius is torn between his desires and those of the machine he helped to create. In the film’s most breathtaking moment, Harry must choose between loyalty and revenge. “Spider-Man 2” is not just a great superhero film, but a great film on its own merits. It is a moving romance as Parker and Mary Jane dance around their feelings before getting caught up in their own web of denial. It is a heart-pounding thriller as Molina’s truly ominous Octavius battles Spidey in awesome freefalls from the tops of buildings. It is even a great drama as we watch Parker grow and mature in front of our eyes. And this is why, whether swinging between skyscrapers, stopping out-of-control subway cars or finally shedding his mask, we root for this geek with the glasses. He could be any of us, exposed, overcoming our fears and coming to grips with our destiny. He reminds us of why we were ever excited by superheroes in the first place.
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It’s hard for me to justify giving Spider-Man 2 four stars. It’s equally difficult for me to not give the film four stars. One of the huge advantages to writing a review so long after a film has come out, is that you can read what everyone else has said and criticize. The pundits of this film have criticized its loose plot lines. I’ve heard some of my testosterone laden friends criticize the film for being ‘too much of a chick flick.’ And of course the culturally elite will criticize it as being a tad too explosion heavy in some parts and a bit lacking in thrills in other parts. As if somehow James Beranadelli has some magic gauge that accurately predicts the exact correct testosterone level. What I realized very soon after walking out of this film was that I was judging this film on the same level as I would have films like American Beauty and Ghost World. This is after all an action film, right? I am generally becoming more and more convinced that there are entire genre’s of film that are inherently less deserving than others. Action films are one of the films I start out with much lower expectations for. They lack dialogue, real characters … thought. But what allows Spider-Man to transcend this admitted stereotype is that this film is not a genre film. Although I’m sure the 19 year old manager at your neighborhood Blockbuster will place the film in the action section, to borrow a line from John Kerry, saying the film is an action film, doesn’t make it so. Spider-Man 2 contains action elements, but unlike 99% of action films is actually takes the time to sit down and develop the characters. Perhaps because the Toby Maguire/Peter Parker/Spider-Man combo is such an incredible brilliance of casting that demands the thoughtful development of a character, but Spider-Man is a far more complex and stunning character than we’ve seen in a long time. Even Sean Connery’s James Bond and Keaton’s Batman were shells compared to the Spider-Man Maquire creates. For people who don’t get off watching Fox’s “when buildings collapse,” action films are about a heightened sensory experience. Something created by allowing yourself into the action happening on the screen. For some of us, that means finding some attachment with the nerdy science kid who doesn’t like wearing his glasses and gets nervous when he talks to the girl he likes. Unlike Bond and Batman, we don’t just wish we were like this character on the outside, we feel like this character on the inside. I don’t have a Batmobile and I’ve never found the opportunity to say “I thought Christmas only came once a year.” Yet, I do wear glasses though and god damnit that’s a start. Still though, there’s this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that Spider-Man 2 had the chance to be perfect and didn’t quite make it. James Franco is at times Soap Opera bad. My cat is quite a bit more menacing than he is, and could probably deliver lines better. He just comes across as a needless big money character without any real depth. He belongs in an action film more than anyone else in this film. Dr. Octavius could use some work as well. Although I think he’s an intriguing complicated villain (like all good villains are), he doesn’t bring this across in the character very much. What is very quickly forgotten in this film is that the little blue LED that protects his brain from the evil arms is broken, but there are still at least 2 different people operating at the same time. This should be something that comes across often in the film. The inner struggle between his arms and himself is far more stunning than the special effects, but whenever Spider-Man and Octavius are involved in a fight, his arms have all the say. There is also at least 20 minutes of this film that are quite simply put, bad. Shortly after Dr. Octavius is transformed into his villain form, there is this whole period where a combination of Franco’s soap opera schtick, some forced back and forth between Octavius and his arms and a story more intent on preserving time than unfolding in an organic manner ruins the film. Granted the film does very quickly regain its momentum and turn itself around very quickly, but that isn’t necessarily an excuse for those twenty minutes. The truth is that I can’t say this film is on the same level as Citizen Kane or Dr. Strangelove, but I still think it deserves four stars. If nothing else this film proves that an action film need not star a steroid bound idiot with a speech impediment that has the vocabulary and emotional depth of a chimp. |
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