Spider-Man 2

Spider-Man 2 is a vast improvement over its predecessor but claiming this is alongside The Dark Knight as objectively incredible CMBs is baffling. This isn’t the masterpiece so many believe it to be.

I’ll start off with the good, Alfred Molina. Doc Ock is the reason this film works as well as it does. The campy horror of Doc Ock, masterfully envisioned by Raimi, fits the tone of this film perfectly. Allowing for some horrifying scenes but also moments of complete charm too. While a sort of rehash of the same motivations as Green Goblin, and a lack of a connection to Spider-Man, this movie sells Doc Ock through its creative action set pieces and having his conflicting sides more apparent.

Again Raimi manages to capture that perfect comic book tone, even more so in this film, it feels like comic pages have come to life on screen.

However, there’s still a plethora of issues with this film and most of them can be boiled down to the holy trinity of the trilogy. Good god, I feel bad for Kirsten Dunst. This film continues the awful mess of character that is Mary-Jane. They don’t know what to do with her and reduce her to a one dimensional person for Peter to obtain, which is highly upsetting considering how integral she is to Peter in comics and other stories. The film doesn’t even know the relationships they’ve set up, apparently in this movie they’ve been best friends since childhood, yet in the last one Peter was stalking her and couldn’t speak to her?

Thematically this movie could be interesting, with Peter dealing between living two different lives and having to choose between them, possibly giving up what he want for the greater good. And Aunt May delivers a really good speech that speaks to this theme. However. The film ends in a place that Peter has made the decision to be Spider-Man and has had to give up his chance with Mary-Jane, because with great power comes great responsibility. Yet Mary-Jane then abandons her fiancée to go to Peter at the end and suddenly that whole thematic build-up is squandered as Peter now has everything he wants. It’s so frustrating that they couldn’t commit to this idea when they had spent so much time justifying this theme.

There’s many debates online as to who the best Spider-Man is and I have no idea how someone can say Maguire. His Peter Parker isn’t likeable and I stand by this. I don’t know if it’s in his performance or his characterisation, but at moments Peter is insufferable. It also doesn’t help that unless Maguire has a strong emotion, he delivers lines with no fluctuation in tone and makes conversations between him and most of the other characters (not Doc Ock, those scenes are great) so lifeless.

And one such person Peter has awful conversations with is Harry. James Franco works with what he’s given in this, but much like Dunst, he can’t elevate the awful writing. He finds out that Peter has killed his Dad and that conversation is just shut down and we don’t get any tension or resolve from it. And why the fuck does he have the same mind stuff as his Dad?!? He’s such a wasted character and the dynamic between these three best friends is atrocious, this isn’t how friends act with each other, and more so they don’t seem like friends at all in this.

While Raimi might’ve nailed the film tonally and built amazing action scenes that are still iconic to this day. Unless you can nail interpersonal relationships and characterisation of your main characters in the film then the film isn’t going to hold up