Written by Alfred Gough And Miles Millar And Michael Chabon
Directed by Sam Raimi
Peter: "You once spoke to me about intelligence. You said it was a gift to be used for the greater good."
Doctor Octopus: "A privilege."
Peter: "These things have turned you into something else ... don't listen to them."
What a difference two years can make both in terms of releases for this sequel and in terms of what actually transpired in this sequel itself. The first movie had the perfect blend of setting up Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) becoming Spider-Man and dealing with life's hurtles and this movie really went to town with providing a lot more of them.
Since the first movie, Peter has struggled to get on top of everything else. J. Jonah Jameson (JK Simmons) has made the webslinger into a media villain with Harry Osborn (James Franco) holding him responsible for his father's death while Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) has become tired of Peter not making time for them. In fact, in this movie alone she only went and got engaged to Jameson's more likable son, John (Daniel Gillies) much to Peter's anguish.
On top of struggling with falling grades, paying the rent, keeping a pizza job and a very awkward conversation with Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) on what really happened to Uncle Ben, it seemed like something had to give and it did. For a brief period in the movie, Peter decided to give up being Spider-Man and opted for a less complicated life. Unfortunately for him, fate had a different idea.
The first movie hit the ground running with Willem Dafoe's take on the Green Goblin and for the second movie, it was Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) to take the baddie reins and boy, did he do a hell of a job here. Otto started off sympathetically here, even with a loving wife named Rosalie (Donna Murphy) but things soon got out of hand.
Notably, Otto's experiments with Tritium saw his robotic arms taking a life of their own and it didn't take long (shortly after his wife's death) before he fully embraced his dark side and gave Spider-Man one hell pf a challenge. One of them being the alliance with a vengeance obsessed Harry while also kidnapping Mary Jane because that trope was a constant within this trilogy.
As a baddie, Molina absolutely delivered on every level with the fight scenes between both Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus being truly sublime, especially the train scene moment. Their final confrontation though took the most surprising of turns with one of the most emotional defeats and redemption of sorts for a baddie we've seen in movies. Out of this trilogy's buddies, Doctor Octopus was definitely my favourite of the bunch.
As for Peter's relationship with Harry. Having the latter know about Peter's true identity provided a stark contrast to Mary Jane knowing. While Peter and Mary Jane became much closer, to the point where she ditched her own wedding, it only served to drive a further wedge between Peter and Harry. The latter also discovering some of his late father's secrets didn't help matters either.
- Bruce Campbell got to be a rude usher in this movie stopping Peter from seeing Mary Jane's play at first. Hal Sparks was also rather amusing as that guy in the elevator with Spider-Man for one scene.
- Dr Curt Connors (Dylan Baker) also appeared in this movie as Peter's professor while Aunt May sold all of Peter's comics.
- Standout music: Dashboard Confessional's Vindicated.
- Chronology: Two years since the events of the first movie.
Spider-Man 2 might be the middle part of this trilogy but it's without a doubt the best part. Some of the best acting, writing, emotional stakes, action sequences and my favourite villain in this particular continuity. Yup, it's a goddamn classic.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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