PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 6/29/04)


Fantastic news, true believers: Spider-Man 2 is smarter, hipper, faster, funnier, and flat-out more electrifying than the original, swinging to new summer-movie heights as the greatest comic-book adaptation yet made. In an age of dumbed- and watered-down blockbusters, this spectacular sequel proves that the superhero movie needn’t suffer a lick from the advent of dramatic integrity and garrulous realism.

Catching up with Spider-Man’s socially awkward alter ego, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire, affecting in his Wild-eyed School of Acting style), we find the webslinger struggling with the "great responsibility" his uncle Ben warned him about. Fired from his pizza delivery job, facing eviction from his Lower East Side hovel, failing his classes at Columbia, and frustrating friends and family with his erratic behavior—it’s enough to give New York City’s wall-walking finest a serious identity crisis, and, of course, it does. After injuring himself repeatedly due to anxiety-fueled web fluid dysfunction, our hero makes the unprecedented choice of throwing away his vigilantism. Like the angels of Wings of Desire (or maybe it’s The Last Temptation of Spidey), he wants to be plain ol’ Peter, to experience life and express his love to Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst, still reliable), from whom he had to walk away at the end of the first film. Scripted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Alvin Sargent (Ordinary People) with a story aided by Michael Chabon (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, largely about the golden age of comics), the film is an unlikely vehicle for such richly drawn, flawed protagonists.

Color into the fray one Doctor Octopus, or as Daily Bugle editor-in-chief J. Jonah Jamison (professional scene-stealer J. K. Simmons) labels him, Doc Ock.  A "fusion" experiment gone awry, Doc Ock (a near-perfect Alfred Molina) is equally conflicted as a man of scientific enlightenment coerced into crime by the four giant metallic tentacles that have taken over his spine and psyche. Darker and deeper than the cartoonish villains that ruined the Batman franchise, Doc Ock is a nemesis to be feared and revered. And for the sake of popcorn-crunchers just looking for a rush, his building-scaling, subway-crashing, bank-heisting fight scenes with Spider-Man are more ass-kickingly special than the effects that bring his auxiliary limbs to life.

As a postscript, fans of director Sam Raimi will be happy to know that he has finally snuck his nutty, Evil Dead–style camera flourishes (and another delicious Bruce Campbell cameo) into this amazing series. Bring on the trilogy, Sam.

—Aaron Hillis