Z/Web

Director: Sam Raimi

Excellent sequel, better than the previous one in many ways. The first part of the film is great: amazingly excellent character-based stuff about Peter Parker, his complex double life, how he can’t tell Mary Jane he loves her (he’s afraid his identity as Spidey will put her in jeopardy), hiding his secret from his best friend who thinks Spider-Man killed his father and vows revenge, etc. The introduction of Octavious (who becomes Doc Oc) is great, but the “science” regarding Doc’s multi-armed invention and fusion device is nonsensical. But this is a comic book so some suspension of disbelief is necessary. The action scenes are excellent, with some good fighting and cool stunts, but there’s nothing exactly earth-shattering or remarkable about the action; it’s just what you’d expect in a film of this type. What the film does well is that it’s story-based, with the Peter Parker/Mary Jane relationship at its core. In this movie the key dilemma is Peter trying to decide if he really wants to be Spider-Man: it seems his Spidey activities are ruining everything he wants in life. Overall this is an excellent film. It’s remarkable that the story-telling is so strong in a normally action-based genre, but Raimi knows that action is only good in support to the story because that’s what gives the action meaning. Good stuff, and I’m very impressed with the way they’ve set things up for Spider-Man 3. I won’t spoil the surprise but the ending promises some new twists and that’s good: the whole Peter/MJ thing is rather exhausted in the first two and I’m delighted we’ll get a different thing next time.