This installment picks up pretty much right where The first time I saw this film I thought it was just about the best comic book movie that had ever been made.  After re-watching it it’s still pretty damn good but there are definitely some things that I’d overlooked the first time… some bad things.

This installment picks up pretty much right where Spider-Man left us.  Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is back at it stopping bad guys left and right.  This is however taking an enormous toll on his personal life.  He’s missing class, late for work, pissing off friends and has essentially no money.  Harry Osborn (James Franco) has taken over for his father at the head of Oscorp and is dead set on getting Spider-Man for killing his father.  They never did explain how Oscorp got back on the map but that’s neither here nor there.

Harry is backing scientist Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) in an experiment which will provide a renewable energy source for the whole world.  As they tend to do in movies, things go terribly wrong and Octavius is transformed into Doc Ock.  During the initial confrontation between Spider-Man & Doc Ock, Spidey’s powers simply stop working for a moment with no explanation given.

Around this time, Peter learns that Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) is going to be marrying another person.  This of course leads to all kinds of angst that normally accompanies unrequited love (how’s that for an bookwormy sentence???)  Peter then makes a decision that he will simply no longer be Spider-Man and in a scene straight out of the comics takes off his costume and throws it away.

As Peter is off on his “I’m not Spider-Man” tour, Harry’s hatred for Spider-Man finally compels him to act and when Doc Ock comes to him looking for a favor he cuts a deal – for Spider-Man.  He tells Doc to get to Spidey through Peter.  In a pathetically predictable series of events, Doc Ock steals Mary Jane and tells Peter to have Spider-Man come get her.  He of course does and the fight is on between Spidey & Ock.

IRRITATING STUFF:

• The “economics” of this flick is one of the things that I’d completely overlooked the first time through.  Peter is broke.  Aunt May (played once again by Rosemary Harris) is broke to the point of foreclosure).  They do a great job of showing us how broke they are, but a terrible job with any kind of resolution to the issue.  By the time the movie wraps there’s a bunch of stuff figured out… but everyone is still broke.
• Spider-Man swings his way around town in the first one and continues to do so here.  I didn’t really catch it much in the first one, but there are a couple of times here where he’s “swinging” from absolutely nothing.  I’d file this in the “suspend disbelief” category but it was a tad bothersome.
• “Go get em tiger” – Mary Jane says this to Peter at the end of the flick just before he swings off to save the day.  This single line starts that incredible gayness that continues in Spider-Man 3.  As soon as she said it I cringed.

GREAT STUFF:

• Train fight – The fight between Spider-Man & Doc Ock aboard the subway train was epic.  This rivals the opening scene in X2 as my favorite sequences in a comic book movie.
• There’s a scene at the end where Harry is having a conversation with his father (roll reprized by Willem Dafoe).  I won’t spoil it here but I’ll say that the intro to the New Goblin is quite well done.
• J. Jonah Jameson – I said it in my review for the original Spider-Man but this roll is incredibly well written and J.K. Simmons delivers his lines in a way that has be rolling every time.

RECOMMENDATION:

If you’re only going to watch one Spider-Man movie this is the one I’d go with.  It’s not bogged down with a bunch of origin stuff like the original and there is a TON of action in here.  The story is pretty straight forward with a couple of side-stories thrown in there for good measure.  As with the first entry in the series, I could have done with a little less Aunt May and Mary Jane but I’d definitely give this a thumbs up.

Written by [...]]]> Origin movies are generally pretty dry.  They have to tell the back story of the character to make sure that everyone is up to speed.  This movie suffers a little bit from that but it’s one of the best first installments of a comic book character that we’ve had in a long time.

Written by comic legend Stan Lee and directed by Sam Raimi, Spider-Man tells the story of Peter Parker (played perfectly by Tobey Maguire).  Parker is a teenager coming of age who happens to be bitten by a radioactive spider on a school field trip.  After that fateful day, the story follows Peter’s transformation from a bumbling, awkward teen into Spider-Man: a vigilante crime fighter who’s out to save the world from evil.

The main villain is a Spider-Man staple: Green Goblin / Norman Osborn played to near perfection by Willem Dafoe.  Dafoe’s performance is outstanding… his voice is great for the role and he shows off the intellect that makes the Goblin more than just a super-powerful bad guy.

Every great hero needs to have a love interest.  Here it’s a character named Mary Jane Watson played by Kirsten Dunst.  There’s not a whole lot to the performance here.  She looks good and does a decent job in the role.  The relationship between Peter and Mary is quite a bit different in the movie than it was in the comics but you’ve got to expect some of that when a book is transferred to the big screen.  The one great moment in the film that contains Watson is the one that has been shown over and over in clips… Spider-Man has just saved Mary Jane from a group of thugs and hangs upside down in an alley and they kiss.  Sounds stupid but it’s pretty intense on screen.

A couple of other characters that need to be mentioned:

• James Franco as Harry Osborn – Harry is the son of Green Goblin / Norman Osborn who is Peter Parker’s best friend and boyfriend of Mary Jane Watson.
• Rosemary Harris as Aunt May Parker – I’m not a big fan of this character in the Spider-Man universe but Ms. Harris does a very admirable job with her.
• Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben Parker – delivers a recurring line in the series, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  Unfortunately at the time its delivered it has nothing to do with Peter being Spider-Man.
• J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson – the editor-in-chief at the Daily Bugle where Peter works as a freelance photographer.  He delivers some of the best lines of dialog in the entire movie.
• Randy “Macho Man” Savage as Bone Saw McGraw – Randy plays a professional wrestler.  Not too much of a stretch but cool to see him regardless.

A COUPLE OF COOL THINGS:

I’m a big comic book fan and even a bigger fan of comic book movies.  The key to a good (I.E. financially successful) comic book movie is to have enough content in there for the comic book geeks out there but not too much that you alienate the non-comic fans.  Two super cool references make it in here:

1. Stan The Man – Stan Lee makes an appearance in just about every Marvel based movie.  You can see him here in the fair scene where the Green Goblin blows up town.
2. Eddie Brock reference – in what seems like a throwaway line of dialog someone at the Bugle makes a reference to how “Eddie” has been trying to get a good shot of Spider-Man for weeks.  This is an obvious reference to Eddie Brock who will show up in Spider-Man 3 as Venom.
3. I think just about everyone on the planet knew that a sequel to this was coming.  The way they set it up was very nice… at the very end of the flick Mary Jane kisses Peter and at the last moment before the camera pans away from her she gets a look of recognition when she realizes that the man she just kissed is in fact Spider-Man.  This isn’t addressed at all in this film which leaves things open for the next installment.

A COUPLE OF “SCRATCH YOUR HEAD” THINGS:

This movie certainly wasn’t without its faults.  It’s far from perfect even for a comic movie.

1. Aunt May delivers the following line when she’s talking to Peter: “You do too much – college, a job, all this time with me… You’re not Superman, you know.”  At first this is a “ha ha” moment until you think about it for a second.  Spider-Man is a Marvel character.  Superman is a DC character.  Not a huge deal for non-comic fans but one of those things that rubs THIS comic geek the wrong way.
2. There’s a scene in the movie where Spider-Man saves a small child from a burning building.  At first glance there’s nothing out of place here… until you realize that the mother of the child is OUTSIDE THE BUILDING screaming for Spider-Man to save her baby.  Um, huh?  As a parent I can guarantee that I’m never leaving the house without my kids… especially a newborn.  Just kind of takes you out of the scene.
3. I made reference earlier to Willem Dafoe’s near perfect portrayal of the Goblin.  The one big bitch I’ve got about that character isn’t even his fault… he looked like a mix between a Power Ranger and a Voltron character.  Absolutely terrible outfit.

RECOMMENDATION:

Origin movies tend to be slow because they have to set up a ton of back story.  Luckily Spider-Man’s back story is pretty simple… it’s a dude that gets bit by a spider.  There’s plenty of action here for the non-comic fan and the story is true enough to the original that the comic geeks will be satisfied.  It’s a good beginning to a worthy franchise.  If you haven’t seen it yet I’d urge you to do so.