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With spectacle alone so often being the focus in the modern blockbuster space?
It is remarkably impressive, even now, twenty years later, just what director Sam Raimi and his creative team achieved with Spider-Man 2.
A deeply personal, human drama tackling themes of sacrifice, self-worth and redemption - that also functions as a superhero movie.
Although, to be fair, it shouldn’t have been that surprising.
Two years earlier, Raimi’s Spider-Man laid down the groundwork, bringing the character to the big-screen properly for the first time, after decades in development hell (consider, if you would, what never was: the James Cameron Spidey flick that would have starred Leonardo DiCaprio).
Combining vivid pop-art-inspired expressionism with high-octane action and a strong respect for the source material.
It wasn’t without a few hitches sure but Spider-Man, alongside the original X-Men movies, most prominently, is often credited with truly legitimizing the genre in the public eye, years before its heyday.
So here it was, in late June of 2004 - Spider-Man 2.
Having crossed the origin-story set-up off the bingo card, working with established characters and tasked with following-up a well-regarded effort.
Sequels, after all, can always be a bit of a gamble.
Instead? Spider-Man 2 stands even taller than its predecessor did, two decades on: as one of the greatest superhero films ever made.
So today, we’re taking a look back.
Let’s get to it.
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is in crisis, struggling to balance his commitments as a student and superhero both.
Broke, isolated and exhausted, he has been suffering recurrent, stress-related loses of his powers, as his personal life collapses around him.
Whether it is his deteriorating relationships with Mary Jane Watson (Kristen Dunst) or his best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco), neither of whom are aware of his secret.
MJ, who is trying to advance her career on Broadway, has stopped holding out hope for Peter to be a consistent part of her life, to his great heartache.
Harry, meanwhile, has fallen into darkness and obsession. Believing, incorrectly, that Spider-Man killed his father Norman (Williem Dafoe), the villainous Green Goblin, he is determined to bring the wall-crawler to justice.
These are the main plot threads, most prominently, that are built on from the first film, held together with the addition of Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius.
An altruistic scientist, who in using advanced “smart arms” of his own invention is working to develop a fusion-based energy source, while becoming a mentor to Peter.
But when his experiment fails, killing his wife and fusing the arms onto his body, he falls into criminality as “Doctor Octopus”, coming into conflict with Spider-Man in the process.
On the surface, yes, there are multiple spinning plates but the catch is that Raimi and the movie’s lone credited screenwriter, Alvin Sargent, keep the focus squarely on the human element, elevated by performances which bring a tremendous sense of gravitas.
For one, Molina’s Octavius remains one of the best, most sympathetic villains in all of superhero moviedom.
An impressive distinction, given the nature of the role.
Even as Otto falls further and further, corrupted by his own genius, you can understand where he is coming from: the good man he was prior to his accident, he’s still in there somewhere. Grieving and wanting to complete his work, if now throughly misguided in his reasoning and actions.
It is something Molina, an actor who has built his career on the back of a fantastic screen presence, makes look easy.
There is a balance to strike, sure. Not wanting to come across as too campy (which, inherently, one will: “You have a train to catch!”) while also being intimidating, appropriately villainous, at the same time.
Molina, the sequencing and structure of his arc, Raimi’s presentation, they all work together in tandem.
Throughly lost until he isn’t, Otto, finding redemption through Peter as he is reminded of both his own humanity and the sacrifices one must make for the greater good.
It is incredibly well done.
Molina brings a completely different energy than Willem Dafoe did before him but delivers a performance, from start-to-finish, that is equally as compelling, if not more so.
In the comics?
Octavius has been, generally, a raging egomaniac for the better part of six decades now, to the point that still-contested storylines like the initial Superior Spider-Man run probably would’ve landed better if the character wasn’t written as a total dick most of the time.
Molina’s interpretation, however, in any medium, remains the gold standard.
From his return to the role in 2021’s multiverse caper, Spider-Man: No Way Home to William Salyers’ take on the character in the Insomniac-developed Spider-Man video game series - which, while strong on its own merits, clearly owes a great deal to what Molina established.
On the same side of the coin, Franco gives what is, arguably, his best performance of the trilogy as Harry’s vendetta against Spider-Man becomes all-consuming.
Now, Franco isn’t necessarily an actor of great range (then or now) but Harry’s inner turmoil is nailed here, especially as the movie moves into its final third and he learns who is behind the mask (a consistency the character’s arc would lack in the sequel but that’s another story).
Kristen Dunst as Mary Jane, meanwhile, doesn’t have the same luck, although, to be fair, it isn’t something that should be squarely put on her.
She is a terrific actress, as her career both pre-and-post Spider-Man has proven but too often throughout the trilogy, it becomes clear that Raimi and his collaborators simply don’t know what to do with the character, with 2 being perhaps the worst offender.
It is made all the more frustrating because there was something to build on from the first film, both in Maguire and Dunst’s chemistry and the budding relationship between their characters. But neither is anywhere to be seen the second time around. MJ’s arc then, comprising weak subplots on paper and weaker execution on screen.
And it is a shame.
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On the page, the dynamic between Peter and MJ has defined a great deal of the best Spider-Man material over the decades: they’re equals, in every sense - strong on their own, through supervillains and whatever else life throws at them but better together.
Unfortunately, while Dunst does bring a good sense of lived-in emotion, her MJ is little more than a damsel in distress. It is a missed opportunity on every level, especially when considering her ability, the character being adapted and what followed: there is none of Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy, with her charming individualism nor Zendaya’s MJ, with her snarky, can-do spirit.
Peter and MJ, they’re supposedly pining after each other but it just doesn’t land the way it should. And given this relationship’s overall importance to the story, it is, easily, the movie’s biggest misstep, ultimately coming to define the trilogy as a whole: other adaptions, they’ve done it far better.
Elsewhere though?
On the supporting side, Elya Baskin as Mister Ditkovitch, Peter’s miserly landlord and Mageina Tovah as his daughter Ursula are both standouts, even with limited screen-time.
Rosemary Harris does solid work, as always, her Aunt May, delivering both wisdom and disappointment as needed, trying to guide her nephew the best she can even with her own struggles.
The Daily Bugle crew are given more to chew on here too and they all do great with are what still, very much, secondary roles.
Ted Raimi is enjoyable as ever as an eager-to-please Hoffman, Elizabeth Banks shines again as Betty Brant and the late Bill Nunn plays Robbie Robertson to a tee (regarding Spider-Man’s secret identity? We know that he knows) but the lion’s share of the focus goes once more to J.K Simmons as hardline newsman J. Jonah Jameson.
And funnily enough, as immediately memorable as he was in Spider-Man, Simmons really doesn’t really have much screen-time in that movie. A bit beefier than just a one-off cameo but not much else.
That isn’t the case in 2, where Simmons is given the spotlight whenever the story allows. And if there could be only one instance of a character being ripped from the page and put on screen?
This is probably it.
A quick-witted, wise-cracking, cigar-smoking blowhard, who is seemingly more concerned with taking down Spider-Man in the public eye than anything else: even as, in his own surreptitious way, he looks out for his most committed freelancer (while not asking too many questions either).
Simmons, of course, is one of the most accomplished actors of his time, in a variety of genres and roles but his work as Jameson, which is almost entirely comic-relief?
It is just pitch perfect.
Enough so, that he has more-or-less defined the character exclusively for over twenty years now.
Voicing him in numerous animated television shows, other adaptions and later on, reprising the role wholesale in the Tom Holland films (albeit, as a widely different interpretation).
But just as movie-goers and Spider-Man fans en-masse associate Simmons as JJJ, the same goes for Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man.
It tracks.
Sure, technically speaking, there were other actors to play the character (or variations on him) in live-action prior (from Nicholas Hammond to Kōsuke Kayama) but Maguire, in bringing Spider-Man to the big screen first, really is the role for a whole generation or more.
Now, when I took a look back at the Amazing Spider-Man duology last month, upon Amazing 2 turning ten? I went to bat for the Andrew Garfield version of the character.
And yes, I’ll continue to stand by that take.
Garfield, for me, delivers a far more complete, complex and comic-accurate Peter Parker, despite the noted narrative shortcomings of both his outings.
That doesn’t mean though, that I can’t appreciate what Maguire brings.
His Peter, in 2 specifically, is a man at the end of his rope. Beyond burnt out, he isn’t even sleepwalking, he’s just trying to keep his head above water.
Heck, if you passed him on the street, you’d probably only look twice out of sympathy, never once to consider that he could be New York’s protecter. But he’s torn. His powers may be a gift but they have become even more of a burden, as he longs to live a normal life.
Yet at the movie’s halfway point, when Peter is at his lowest, subconsciously represses his powers and does abandon his superhero identity for a time?
He still finds himself driven to help, to do the right thing, whatever the personal cost.
Adapting the broad strokes from 1967’s No More! arc (Amazing Spider-Man #50-52), it is the crux of the whole operation and while it is a little over-sentimental at times, it succeeds in part thanks to Maguire’s delivery.
Guilt, resentment and conflicted responsibility: there are a multitude of emotions he is required to convey and he balances it all with ease. His portrayal, when compared to his successors or most other takes on the character, remaining unique, an outlier of sorts.
Quiet and unassuming, almost to a fault. He doesn’t really banter or quip, the outward joy he finds in his super-heroics, displayed only rarely.
He is a troubled, brilliant, highly emotional man with a tortured soul, coming to accept that any heroic action, while undoubtedly noble, will inevitably come with sacrifice and some semblance of regret.
An inner strength you, as a viewer, can’t help but respect.
It works and does so wonderfully because Maguire fully embodies and understands just what makes his version of Peter Parker tick.
Whatever the odds, he won’t back down.
And when Maguire reprised the role in No Way Home, alongside Garfield and Tom Holland? It was of a reminder of how his Peter Parker stands alone, distinct, in the larger Spider-Man canon. Something of a wise older brother and mentor figure, a fantastic contrast to his more traditionally-written, off-the-cuff counterparts.
It is a performance that remains the benchmark for many, still now, all these years later because it is so well-executed, uniformly, across the board.
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And that goes, ultimately, for so much of Spider-Man 2 overall.
All of the other flourishes and strong creative decisions, contributing to a project that feels fully lived-in, yet exceedingly rare when compared to its peers currently populating the superhero landscape.
An auteur’s vision with big-budget backing.
Perhaps it is Danny Elfman’s ever-iconic score or the craftsmanship behind the little things you wouldn’t necessarily catch at a glance, like Bill Pope’s cinematography: assisted by the aptly-named “Spydercam”, which brings a greater sense of web-swinging verisimilitude to life.
Creating smaller moments, yet striking all the same.
Like the simplicity of Spider-Man swinging through the night, with the Empire State Building in the background.
Maybe it is the physical-first set design, the minute details afforded to the costuming or the focus on practical effects over CGI whenever possible.
This, best seen in the one thing you wouldn’t necessarily expect: Otto’s arms. In the more bombastic, action-heavy moments, they’re digital (obviously) but otherwise?
In the instances where Otto is directly interacting with his creations, whether through lighting a cigar or “speaking” to them (as they become increasingly more sentient) they were controlled physically, on-set, by puppeteers: sixteen in total, four to an arm, including the claws.
You believe it: the weight and raw power to their movement, how each individual arm seems to operate independently with its own personality because well… they kind of were.
It is something, unfortunately, we just don’t see it much in action filmmaking anymore, such a commitment to practicality, even if brought upon by era-restraints - heck, even in No Way Home, the arms were completely digital.
It speaks to the artistic highs that define so much of Raimi’s second spider outing.
The performances, the thematic tissue, the special effects, all of it coming together in what remains one of the best action sequences, genre aside, ever put on screen: Spider-Man and Octavius, fighting aboard an elevated train, as Peter, forced to expose his secret identity, does everything he can to save innocent lives.
It is a masterclass in on-screen storytelling (if a little heavy on a saviour imagery but beggars can’t be choosers, so it goes).
And while 2 ends, strongly, with the board reset and the promise of bigger stakes ahead, somewhat notoriously, the trilogy really wouldn’t stick the landing: at least, not in totality.
Punctuated by studio interference, a director who wasn’t fully invested and mixed reception, despite its technical highs, the collective shrug that followed Spider-Man 3 in 2007, despite the potential for more, would eventually lead the franchise being rebooted with the Garfield films a few years later.
But Spider-Man 2 and the trilogy as a whole, endure.
Whether as the basis for entire online communities (and the resulting memes) a continuing high-water mark for the larger genre or the blueprint for so much of what would follow.
Totally removed from criticism?
Of course not.
The pacing hits a few snags, some of the character work, as discussed, is lacking and you can occasionally see Raimi struggling with the push-and-pull that will come with trying to package a drama within the framework of a superhero outing.
But on a personal level, faults aside, this movie has always meant a lot to me: it is one of the first movie-going experiences I have.
I remember being five years old, having been reading Ultimate Spider-Man on the car ride over. And then there I was, sitting in the theatre, looking up in awe at every frame, as it brought something magical to life.
And twenty years later?
I still feel the same way.