I loved the first Spider-Man movie and when it recently came

on HBO I watched it again and again from different places. I

liked the storytelling, the humor and the action sequences. In

the sequel, creatively titled Spider-Man 2, all of those elements

were present once again, as was a much better and more fully

realized villain in Doctor Octopus.

When the movie starts, it is two years later and while Peter

Parker's friends Mary-Jane and Harry are moving up in the

world, Peter is stuck delivering pizzas and flunking college,

as his duties as a hero in the city that never sleeps keeps him

very, very busy. It takes a while for the movie to get going,

but once it does, it takes the audience on a very satisfying

ride.

Doctor Octopus, played by Alfred Molina, is one of the most

entertaining things in the movie. His mechanical tentacles are

like four giant anacondas, each with a mind of its own and hell-bent

on destruction and power. They move alarmingly fast and create

all sorts of mayhem. Every sequence with Doc Ock and his arms

is brilliant, haunted house -like fun. The only complaint may

be that viewers want more of Doc Ock and less of Peter's

struggles on whether to be or not to be Spider-Man. Toby Maguire

plays both Parker and Spiderman amiably, making both characters

an underdog of sorts and hard not to root for.

All of the performances are fine - though Kirsten Dunst's

Mary Jane Watson and James Franco's Harry Osborn don't

have too much to do. Mary Jane stays peeved at Peter for jilting

her for much of the film and Harry is peeved at Peter for not

revealing Spider-Man's identity, so that he can exact revenge

on the hero for killing his father. One of the bright stars in

the film is J.K. Simmons' J.J. Jameson, the editor of the

Daily Bugle. His is a great character full of venomous humor.

Hopefully, he will play an even bigger role in upcoming installments.

Sam Raimi once again did an excellent job as director and it

appeared that he had a lot of fun with this film. Raimi began

his career with campy horror films like "Evil Dead" and

the much better "Evil Dead II" and one can see Raimi

returning to his roots in some of the film's sequences and

having a blast. It is hard to tell whether I liked this installment

better than the first one and I'm afraid I won't know

until well in the future - after multiple viewings. I can highly

recommend this movie though - it was a lot of fun and well deserving

of it's assured box office success.

Home | News | Sports | Opinion | Weekend | Special

Sections | Classifieds | Archives

Copyright 2004-Fayette Publishing, Inc.