Originally posted July 6, 2004
Spider-Man 2
Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Screen Story by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar and Michael Chabon, Screenplay by Alvin Sargent, based on the comic book created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
Producers: Laura Ziskin, Avi Arad
Stars: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Alfred Molina, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons
We knew the filmmakers behind Spider-Man were doing something different when everything to do with web-slinging and Spidey-Sense stopped and we were just watching two kids, neighbors in the back yards of their so-so neighborhood, talking about the dreams they have for when they get out of high school.
And so it was established that while this was a comic book movie, with all the fun and action and attitude we were used to, it was also never going to cheat its characters out of the real emotions they’re going through. These are people who are lonely and behind on their bills, and never get enough sleep. It’s no big surprise that a lot of people can relate.
We’re reminded of this early in Spider-Man 2 when we learn that the bank is foreclosing on the childhood home of Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), and his widowed Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) is running out of money and options. Still, as Peter is about to return to his run-down apartment in the city, she presses a $20 bill in his hand. “And don’t you dare leave it here!” she bursts with unexpected emotion.
It’s one of those beautiful moments where the pain suddenly leaks through the structures we build to get through the day, and we think back to the fact that they must have hired Alvin Sargent, the Oscar-winning writer of Julia and Ordinary People, to provide moments exactly like that.
The marketing campaign for this movie was built around the phrase “the story continues”, and it’s hard to think of more appropriate words for this sequel. Not only is this one of the best superhero movies ever made, it is in its guts one of the most well-conceived superhero sequels.
We see growth and change – Peter is a master at crime-fighting (if a wreck at everything else), Mary Jane’s a budding actress/model with a Broadway lead role, and Harry Osborn (James Franco) has become a bitter drunk, fiercely embracing his role as the scion of industrial giant Oscorp, and burning with the desire to avenge his father’s death at the hands of Spider-Man. That his father was the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), no one has yet told him.
And yet they still have many of the same troubles. Mary Jane hasn’t given up her romantic longing for a hero – she’s being courted by square-jawed, super-sensitive astronaut John Jameson (Daniel Gillies). But when she asks him to kiss her upside-down, we know that for all his merits, he is not as good a substitute as she was clearly hoping. Peter creeps around his own apartment building, hoping to not draw the attention of his landlord (Ilya Baskin). Rare is the sentence the landlord utters that does not have the word “rent” in it, usually shouted. Peter’s failing his classes and, even with Spidey powers, just can’t make his pizzeria’s “29-minutes-or-it’s-free!” deadline. Yet still he suits up, trying to deserve the powers he was given in the way he thinks his murdered Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) would have wanted.
Meanwhile (there’s always “Meanwhile” in a comic book story) Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), a genius inventor with a grant from Oscorp, is attempting to create a limitless source of fusion energy. To aid him he has invented a set of four artificially-intelligent mechanical tentacles that communicate directly with his brain. But, he assures us, he is perfectly safe, since there’s a special chip that prevents the mechanical from outvoting the organic. We in the audience know to doubt such assurances, and after a disastrous test run of his invention, Octavius becomes fused with his extra limbs and is reborn as the villainous Doctor Octopus.
The rational side of him still exists, and we watch eerie scenes where the tentacles hover around his head, moving ever so anthropomorphically, and he reacts as if he hears voices and he’s not about to argue with them. If four high-strength, artificially-intelligent metal claws were talking to me, I would probably find it pretty convincing as well.
He goes on a bank robbing spree to fund the re-creation of his experiment, right when Peter Parker is having second thoughts about being Spider-Man. Mary Jane is getting married, Harry keeps demanding that he rat out his “friend” so he can have his revenge, and the only way he can make money is by pimping photographs of Spidey to Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons, with more screen time this go around and the bluster to fill it) who still enjoys tarring the web-slinger as a menace to the people of New York.
Filled with frustration and self-doubt (even his powers seem to be failing him) he finally throws away the suit, and returns to the life of Peter Parker.
We’re rewarded for remembering the first movie, because the role of invisible geek, which Peter so despised and struggled against, is now like a vacation to him. He relishes getting good grades and not having to chase every police siren. Mary Jane has given him endless chances to declare his love, even assuring him it’s requited, but he keeps spurning them. Now, he hopes, he can take one, if there are any left to be had.
Amazing how long I could keep talking about this movie and not even get to the action. Director Sam Raimi, ever the kinetic genius, is in full and confident command of the visual effects at his disposal. Spider-Man swings through the steel canyons of Manhattan more gracefully, more beautifully, more…swoopfully than ever. There’s an extended fight in, on, and around a speeding elevated train that’s a self-contained miracle of pacing and ingenuity; you can genuinely see Spidey and Doc Ock thinking – well, geez, that didn’t work, how about…this? as they apply their powers against one another.
It’s almost a let down to move from that sequence to the climax, which is more emotional in nature and depends, in the end, not on Peter/Spider-Man’s abilities, but on what he has learned from the experience of abandoning, then re-embracing, the role fate has outlined for him. It’s just part of what makes this movie so fair to its characters – their relationships are still evolving to the last frame, and we’re left thinking only that Spider-Man 3 can’t come quickly enough.