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| Saturday, July 4th
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| Movie Forums :: Reviews :: Spider-Man 2 Stuns |
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Posted on 7/01/04
Spider-Man 2 Stuns
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The superhero genre is a difficult one. Predominantly young audiences demand action and excitement, but the older, original comic book fans demand allegiance to the storylines which made the character popular in the first place. And in a sequel with both a higher budget and more hype surrounding it than the first, the difficulties are only multiplied. Sam Raimi, as it turns out, was more than up to the task.
Some reviewers (Roger Ebert is among them) are hailing Spider-Man 2 being, possibly, the best superhero film of all-time. Whether or not this is true, I'll leave for a more experienced reviewer to decide, but in modern terms, it stands at the top of a very entertaining group of movies.
Raimi's film is arguably the first of its kind to hit all its major bases. Batman was often too dark to serve as a fun summer thrill ride. Hulk had a bizarre, unsatisfying climax, and X-Men, despite being a strong entry into the pantheon of superhero films, simply had too many characters to allow us to form much in the way of emotional attachment to the characters. Spider-Man 2 does not suffer from any of these problems. The action is top-notch, and plentiful. The ending ties all of its loose ends without overstaying its welcome. And the major characters are just few enough that we can really get to know them.
One of the most difficult challenges such a film faces lies in not letting the audience lose focus when the action ends, and a more slowly-paced scene begins. But here, the concurrent storylines and character arcs which usually cause a dropoff in interest next to their fight-scene counterparts, command as much attention as each battle. At one point in the theater, during an emotional scene, I heard gasps in response to a simple, softly-spoken line of dialogue. Such is the payoff of the long-term investment that is character development.
The special effects are also better; Spider-Man has never looked so real, and there's virtually no seam between CGI hero and human actor. His jumps and swings no longer feel as effortless, and his falls are heavier. Most of those falls come at one of the many hands of "Doctor Octopus," played by Alfred Molina. Raimi's horror roots peek out of the ground in the emergency room; a scene which lets Molina's character intimidate the audience into taking him seriously for the rest of the film. "Doc Ock" is genuinely scary, and steals the show. The Green Goblin was an effective villain, but Molain's character generates far more fear and concern for the main characters.
More impressive, however, is the way the film takes the message of the first ("with great power comes great responsibility"), and explores it, even expanding on it. This is a movie that respects its audience; a figurative line from Aunt May about "holding on for just one more second" takes on a more literal meaning later in the film, but rather than ham-fistedly point out the parallel, we're left to make the connection on our own. This is first-rate storytelling.
Most satisfying is that some genuine resolutions are met. Peter's relationship with Aunt May, Mary Jane, and Harry all change in significant ways. The promos for the film make it abundantly clear that Raimi and the cast decided early on to make this into a trilogy. The movie's ending echos this, and gives us an idea as to which direction it's going on.
This film is a rare thing; a genre film which can be enjoyed by those who don't care for the genre. Raimi has created a movie which inhabits Marvel's marvelous world, but is not confined by it. The result is, indeed, one of the strongest entries into the superhero movie archives, and one of the best films of the year.
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