Spider-Man 2

Quick, jot down everything you like about super-hero comics. I'll bet dollars to donuts the writing isn't in your list. That might have been true in The Silver Age, but now the writing counts (as witnessed by yours truly in some of the recent Spiderman story arcs -- yup, you betcha I read comics). And they made an effort for the film, so as not to piss off anyone who wanted a real movie experience as opposed to a brain-dead actioner. I'd say they succeeded as well as they did for the first Spider-man flick. It's actually somewhat of a slower film since large portions are devoted to the tragic romance between Peter and Mary Jane, and to the interaction between Peter and his Aunt May. But, zounds, when the action starts, it's good! The CGI is almost perfect -- although you can still tell it's fake, it's leaps and bounds (pun, so laugh!) above the previous film's CGI animation. Doc Ock is played by Alfred Molina, and I doubt I need to say more as I've rhapsodized about him before. Kirsten Dunst still doesn't make sense to me as Mary Jane. MJ is supposed to be a hot ticket who dresses down to conceal her beauty but fails miserably. Dunst looks more like a plain Jane, in my opinion. Tobey Maguire is just fine as our masked hero, but the award goes to J.K. Simmons who must have read every Spiderman comic ever published in order to channel yellow journalism publisher J. Jonah Jameson without flaws. Naturally, there is every indication by the end of the film that there will be a third, so you'll get to see all these favorite characters (and more!) in the next go round.

year: 2004
length: 127 min.
rating: 3.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316654/combined