Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Alfred Molina, J.K. Simmons
Director: Sam Raimi
Rated: M15+
SPIDER-MAN 2 is easily the cream of this season’s blockbuster crop, and, to my mind, one of the best comics-inspired films of all time.
Unlike the original (which I thought was mediocre and) which doggedly ploughed its way through the requisite comic book mythology (radioactive spider bites, super hero costume choices, ancillary characters, etc) before finally arriving on a highly predictable, good-versus-evil story, Spider-Man 2 hits the ground at pace.
And yet, from the opening scene – an amusing Chaplinesque battle with the contents of a broom closet – you begin to realise this is not your typical July release movie.
Somehow, director Sam Raimi wrested control of this film from the studio executives and their dullard test audiences (maybe Raimi has his own spandex leotard hidden underneath his clothes).
Spider-Man 2 takes chances not often seen in a July release, and most of them work.
Take for example, the transitional montage wherein Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire without his leotard) discovers the joys of his temporary retirement from spidering during a stroll through New York in a scene that visually recalls the title sequence of television’s The Odd Couple.
Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head plays over the scene, and you cannot help but conjure Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy taking time from lawbreaking to ride his bike in the yard with Katharine Ross’s Etta Place. Rather than rehash the specific intricacies of the plot, I will shorthand this review by saying the story is unusually complex and intricate for a mass market blockbuster.
There is the expected wrangle between the forces of good and not so good. But in the script, good – Maguire’s Spidey – and evil – Alfred Molina’s wonderful Dr Octopus – both suffer from the anguish of doubt and ambiguity, and both feel the weight of free will and responsibility. Moreover, the struggles which made Spider-Man the first ‘everyman’ super hero and a comic book star in the 1960s are dealt with in splendidly comedic manner in this film.
I won’t spoil the laughs by describing the humour in advance, but it gives nothing away to say that J.K. Simmons steals his scenes as the boisterous, self-centred newspaper man J. Jonah Jameson.
And the best supporting performance in the film goes to the puppeteers and effects specialists who gave life to the metal arms of Doc Ock.
Like mesmerising serpents, these metallic claws convey an unexpected personality and wit, imaginatively becoming characters themselves.
In spite of this rave review, the film isn’t without its imperfections. So lest I raise expectations too high, a few cautionary notes.
Kirsten Dunst is less than inspired as Spidey’s on-again, off-again love interest. And the storyline involving James Franco, who reprises his role of Harry Osborn, the son of the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) who was vanquished in the first instalment, is often inconsistent, sometimes teeters into silly and ultimately crashes in an inane preface to Spider-Man 3.
None of this, however, is enough to mar the film’s charm and intelligence.
