Just another ultra standard mainstream blockbuster

Rating: 4/10 (15 July 2004)

I found Spiderman 1 a pretty bad flick, because of uninvolving characters, but this sequel manages to be somewhat better. Yet it manages to still be an average mainstream blockbuster which lacks imagination. The plot is simple, the love story is geared towards teenagers, and most characters borderline caricatural.
Near the middle of the film, my friends and I were starting to get bored actually, although it's quite fun to chase all the incoherences in the realization. There are numerous of them. For example, the car on which Peter Parker falls from the top of a building is left intact. Or the suit that he throws in the middle of the street is miraculously clean and ironed 5 minutes after. But that's the privilege of super heroes I guess. The kitchen "fusion", though, looks pretty ridiculous and unrealistic (if a spherical plasma was stable, why would the physicists bother to make them toric ? not mentioning its magical magnetic properties).
Anyway, these are still minor details in such a movie even though such details can make a difference. The most annoying thing, though, is the lack of originality in just about everything, from the script to dialogues (the little aunt who delivers another over-the-top speech on how the world needs super heroes) to situations (the passengers of the train carrying the body of Spiderman is pretty ridiculous, the whole train scene actually looks ridiculous and hardly believable) to film-making itself.
Nothing really bad, but nothing outstanding either. Just another blockbuster that fits in the long series of average Marvel Comics adaptations we've had so far : Batman & Robin, Xmen, Daredevil, Captain America, and coming Catwoman, Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer. But certainly not the masterpiece that is hailed by IMDb users.