Spider-Man 2 Film Review
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Alfred Molina, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, Donna Murphy
Director: Sam Raimi
Synopsis: Now fully established as Spider-Man, Peter Parker struggles to balance his superhero duties, college and his personal life. All the while, after an experiment goes awry, the villainous Doctor Octopus is unleashed on New York City…
Review: When the line “with great power comes great responsibility” is uttered by Uncle Ben Parker around the middle of the first film in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, it was advice that Peter Parker brushed off at the time. However as the film’s events transpired and Peter became everyone’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, one of the last pieces of advice that Peter received from his beloved Uncle stuck with him, and transformed him into the wall-crawling badass. Furthermore, as a piece of advice that’s so powerful, it seems evident that it resonated the production team. As with the success that the first film enjoyed, the responsibility was on them to top that when it came to the sequel, and they absolutely delivered.
Having adopted his superhero mantra and doing a plethora of good deeds, not everything is going as Peter would want it to in terms of his personal life. He’s struggling at college and is struggling to connect with the love of his life MJ, whilst best friend Harry is still fuming with Spidey as believes Spider-Man was the man who killed his father. It’s a balancing act, and Peter just doesn’t quite have a hold on it. Things get even more tricky when brilliant scientist Dr Otto Octavius, who is aiming to change the world, sees an experiment go south and turns him into the villainous Doctor Octopus. It’s quite the job balancing all of these and not letting the plot get bogged down, but screenwriter Alvin Sargent balances all of these to keep the story moving swiftly along.
Maguire, Dunst and Franco are all once again tremendous in their roles. As the central characters you really feel for each of them, and the various situations they’re going through. Peter and MJ certainly made their feelings for each other known and you want to see them make it work. The very best superheroes have layers to them, that there’s so much more to them than the person behind the mask, and Maguire is very compelling as both Peter and the man behind the mask. Though Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin was a wonderful antagonist, he was sort of hampered by his costume. Fortunately there’s none of that here as Alfred Molina is superb in the dual role of the brilliant professor, Otto Octavius and the mad scientist super-villain with four mechanical arms, knock as Doc Ock after his experiment fails.
Raimi once again in the director’s web, and he does a tremendous job of fusing the injections of comedy that are peppered throughout the script, with some seriously dark and disturbing scenes. Much like its predecessor, there is one scene in particular that really pushes the boundary, and is perhaps a glorious nod to Raimi’s background in the horror genre. Though in terms of the action scenes, there’s absolutely nothing horrific here, just some crafted to perfection scenes that are pulsating to watch. Special mention to the battle on the train, which would surely rank as one of the best fight scenes in a superhero film without any question of a doubt.
There is an element of repeating the tropes of the first film for sure, but given that it worked a treat the first time, you can hardly blame Raimi and co for wanting to change up the formula, especially since what they produced here was an improvement on the first film. With Danny Elfman again providing a superb accompanying score, Raimi hit all the right notes and ensured that Spidey swung his way to success once more, deservedly regarded by many as the best Spidey film that has graced the silver screen.
Through the Silver Screen 