Review: "Spider-Man 2"
Starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina
Directed by Sam Raimi
3.5 stars (out of 4)
Spider-Man 2 may be the best superhero film to come along in a long while, thanks in no small part to the essential self-awareness and assumed glory permeating every frame. In a film of fantastic moments, conversations become catharsis, duels become redemptive and the characters seem somehow collectively drawn together by the cruel/kind hand of fate as the hero, the villain, the girl and the greatness are fused into one long orgiastic tribute to entertainment itself. Movies can save us, and the best ones also tell us we're worth saving.
As a sequel, everything works: artwork in the opening credits gives an abridged version of the first film, and before you know it we're back in the life of Peter Parker (Maguire), everyday college student and pizza delivery boy struggling to make rent and understand his love for Mary-Jane (Dunst). Fired from the pizza place and barely surviving on the fees he makes shooting Spidey photos for the Daily Bugle's J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons, here a comic character incarnate), Peter's falling behind at the university. Writing a paper on physicist Dr. Otto Octavius (Molina) gives Peter the chance to meet the doctor as well as witness a trial run on a new type of energy fusion that leaves a set of four mechanical arms grafted right onto soon-to-be-christened-Doc-Ock's body. Why would the good doctor go to such extraordinary lengths developing mechanical arms of frightening A.I. just to help along some fuzzily explained fusion project? My friend, you're at the wrong party; we're just here for the ride.
So the latest villain on Spider-Man's plate is now Doc Ock, who robs banks to finance an even bigger version of the fusion bomb that performed so terribly the first time. But, tired of always missing the opportunity to win M-J's heart, Peter packs in the Spidey suit in an attempt to live a normal life. He attends a play she's in, meets her for coffee, but to no avail: she couldn't wait forever, so she gets engaged to Jameson's son, John, an astronaut (too perfect).
Through a series of predictable but enjoyable events, Peter decides to re-don the red tights and take once more to the skyscrapers of NYC in the mission to stop Doc Ock.
Where the first film thrived on teases -- will Peter reveal his alter-ego to Mary-Jane? will best friend Harry (James Franco) discover Peter killed Harry's father, the Green Goblin? -- this film delivers on serious plot progression, rewarding audiences with complexly developing relationships between knockout fight sequences. Although the ending is requisitely left open for a third film (already scheduled for a summer 2007 release), viewers will enjoy watching tensions build as characters grow together and fall apart.
Director Sam Raimi (his oeuvre including the Evil Dead series) has easily surpassed the first film of the series: here the stakes are higher, the choices are tougher and the superheroing is a whole lot harder. Screenwriter Alvin Sargent (Ordinary People, Unfaithful) has created a fast-paced and only occasionally unbelievable (what protagonist really narrates out loud?) screenplay, working from a story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Michael Chabon. Gough and Millar know a thing or two about superheroes in adolescent uncertainty, having co-created TV's Smallville, and Chabon is a modern novelist of the first order, the pen behind Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, soon to be adapted to film itself.
It's that self-awareness that makes the film more than just another popcorn flick. It embraces the inherent cornball factor present in comics and runs full speed downfield, using skilled editing, effect-based transitions and more soft focus shots than are necessary to create a palpable feeling of almost transcendent joy. A grinning, galloping example of pure pop art, Spider-Man 2 knows exactly what it needs to do and gets it done with style to spare.
