Spider-Man 2 (***)
review by Jon Waterman

Even though Green Goblin is out of the picture, Peter Parker has little time to relax. He’s still spending time as the city’s under-appreciated superhero Spiderman. Sure, he’s taking care of smaller fish, but they need to be fried, too. In the meantime, he has to find a way to make end’s meet and pay rent. Also, there’s college to worry about. And to top it all off, a new super villain is created when Dr. Octavius’ fusion experiment goes awry. He’s left with four mechanical limbs with minds of their own and a desire to prove the world wrong. Just another day for Peter, the nerd turned hero.

You just gotta love summer movies, especially when they are legitimately entertaining. So many of the giant blockbusters think a bunch of special effects and a loose story line is all you need to wow a crowd (*ahem* “The Day After Tomorrow” *ahem*). Where “Spidey Dos” differs is in the care for details and the attention spent on developing actual characters, complete with personality and actual human emotions (batteries not included, playsets sold separately). Here we see Parker (played by Tobey Maguire) trying to come to grips with his identity. He’s comfortable as a masked avenger, but struggles to find his place as a normal college age kid with a job and social life. Even the villains are portrayed as likeable people who just happen to be victims of circumstances somewhat beyond their control. Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus (although I don’t know if that name is really even said in the film – if so, I bet it was just once) was a great person to watch and even though I knew he was going to turn bad, I didn’t want him to. I felt sorry for the bad guy. How many summer movies can honestly make you say that?

But with the good comes the bad. Once again, I must confess my dislike of Kirsten Dunst. She has yet to offer anything more than eye candy when on the screen, and I don’t particularly enjoy the candy either. Maybe that’s why they felt they needed to dowse her shirt again. The plot takes a while to come to any type of worthy starting point. The character expansion and development I mentioned is a good thing, but the situations that are brought up during these early scenes are forgotten and have no resolution. I think it would have been worth it to close off a couple of the tiny side stories that aren’t important for a third film. The whole rent/landlord (and his daughter) thing seemed very much worthless aside from a lame joke involving the community bathroom. There has to be a good way to tie it all together so that these sequences have more weight in terms of furthering the plot rather than just enhancing it.

Then there are the special effects. Is it just me or do they look worse this time around. I think the costume is a brighter shade of red and pops out more than it used to, but that makes it look more cartoony. Also, they seem to substitute a digital Spiderman whenever possible, even when he’s not flying through semis or past helicopters for no good reason. By not using humans in the suits to the fullest potential, they take away just that much more magic from it all. It wasn’t a problem in the first film, so I don’t know why the digital effects were so overused here. I got bored and disappointed with the action scenes very quickly because of that.

The film does take a little while to really get rolling, but once it does, it’s fun to watch and actually shows some depth. Director Sam Raimi has done it again. How does it compare to the first “Spider-Man” you may ask? Well, I’d have to say it’s pretty much just as good. The effects are worse, and the action isn’t as intense or prominent. However, the characters continue to grow and newsman J. Jonah Jameson is back. If you haven’t already, see the first before heading to the theater, because this sequel is very much a continuation and you may not get the same impact out of it all without that primer. It’s not just a good summer movie; it’s a good movie. How can you go wrong?

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