Spider-Man 2

Release Date: June 30, 2004

Watch Date: September 26 – September 28, 2023

“In Spider-Man 2, the latest installment in the blockbuster Spider-Man series, based on the classic Marvel Comics hero, Tobey Maguire returns as the mild-mannered Peter Parker, who is juggling the delicate balance of his dual life as college student and a superhuman crime fighter. Peter’s life becomes even more complicated when he confronts a new nemesis, the brilliant Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) who has been reincarnated as the maniacal and multi-tentacled “Doc Ock.” When Doc Ock kidnaps MJ (Kirsten Dunst), Spider-Man must swing back into action as the adventure reaches new heights of unprecedented excitement.”

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    I don’t think it’s really fair for me to try and write reviews on this movie. I mean, this movie is a classic. This movie is when the original Spider-Man cast did everything just right. Tobey Maguire knew how to play Peter Parker, Kirsten Dunst had perfected her scream, James Franco was barely in it, and Alfred Molina captured a tragic villain in an epic performance. There was no emo Spider-Man. No one was wooden. Well…less people were wooden. Aunt May gets to give an epic speech about being a hero. And New York, once again, supports – this time literally – their web slinging Avenger. What’s not to love?

    The faces. Mostly. This is a movie that’s bad with faces. It’s a lot of overacting in the face department because they’re doing a lot of stuff with green screens and CGI and so the actors are reacting to no sensation and so they have to wing it and then you just get a lot of really bad faces. It became a thing where Bob and I would randomly state “face”, almost a game where you had to point out every single time a face was truly terrible. It happened a lot more than I think most people would like in a movie they created. There’s just a lot of bad stills here for Tobey and Alfred.

    I don’t usually love a movie that ends with such obvious sequel bait. I like there to be a complete story, and if there’s a sequel, great, but if there isn’t, that’s alright too. The first one did this well. A complete story, beginning, middle and end. Were there problems with it? Certainly. But the plot was good. This movie, you’ve got a beginning, middle, end, and then a second beginning. It’s not needed, and could have been very easily woven into a third movie. I get why they did it. The first film was an absolute smash hit, defined the super hero genre, why wouldn’t they franchise the thing? There was going to be a third movie. They knew this one would succeed too. But it doesn’t play well as a story. Because maybe it could have bombed and then I’m stuck with a hanging plot point. It’s a very unfortunate thing that nearly all super hero films do now-a-days, and they got better at it, adding post credit and mid credit scenes so that if you wanted, you could watch the complete movie and not watch the little tag at the end that set you up for a sequel. I appreciate it.

    This movie, like all of the original Spider-Man movies, gives me such a strong sense of nostalgia. I watch it and I’m immediately a kid again, sitting in my childhood home watching films with my brother. All his toys are Spider-Man themed, his room has posters, and his number one video game is Spider-Man on the family PC. It’s a simpler, peaceful time. I’m all for it. I’d watch these movies just for that nostalgia.

    Chances are, because we’re going into the weekend, and the next two movies in the Marvel portion of our marathon aren’t completely kid friendly, Blade Trinity and Punisher, this is the end of our Marvel adventure for the time being. That’s kind of sad. I don’t know why these past two months have been so chaotic for us, I know that we had hoped to accomplish so much more. All I can say is that I hope going into spooky month, Bob’s picks in November, and the holiday season that things calm down and we can get back on track. It’s weird how disappointed we are when we look at our films list and see just how little progress we made compared to the past seven months. I look forward to picking the Marvel films back up next Avengers August, and hopefully not needing to extend them into Super Hero September. But it’s been an awesome ride for the time being, and I’ve been exposed to a lot of super hero movies that I wish I hadn’t. It can only go up from here!