To Be or Not to Be  Spiderman

Rating: Null/10 (19 October 2004)

Like Shakespeare¹s Hamlet, Peter Parker aka Spiderman (Tobey McGuire) has problem. Like many young people (and even some older ones) the biggest question in his life is "who am I?"
This has got to be a difficult question for a superhero, especially one as young and confused as Peter Parker.
"He lives in another reality," says his childhood sweetheart Mary Jane Watson, aka MJ (Kirsten Dunst).
Should he hide himself under his Spidey suit and save the world, or should he chuck it all and go to college so he can get a real job and marry MJ?
These are some of the ultimate questions being asked in Spiderman 2, the second installment in what is a worthy sequel to 2002¹s Spiderman. But there is more to this film than Spiderman¹s problems - everyone has to deal with similar issues - the good guys and the bad.
The film opens with a bang as Peter Parker, working as a pizza delivery boy,is late for work again. (It's hard to save the world and hold a job at the same time.)
He¹s given one more chance to deliver a bunch of pizzas uptown in 12 minutes. The scenes of Spiderman whipping around the steel and glass canyons of Manhattan holding a stack of pizza boxes is a joy to watch and a special effects tour de force  and it only gets better.
Parker is broke. He's way behind on his rent, he has no job and he's about to be bounced from university because he's never there. The only way he can make any money is by selling pictures of Spiderman to cigar-chomping,headline hustling newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons). But that's not all: the bank is foreclosing on Aunt May¹s house and MJ is thinking of marrying Jameson's astronaut son John (Daniel Gillies). Even though he's still afraid to tell MJ he loves her, he knows he can¹t live without her. He feels his whole life slipping away just because he's Spiderman. Things are so bad his Spiderman suit even ruins his laundry!
If that wasn¹t bad enough a brilliant scientist, Otto Octavius (a powerful Alfred Molina) has bitten off more than he can chew by inventing the perfect fusion-based energy source that needs four metal arms grafted on to his spine to help control the reaction. "It's like holding the power of the sunin the palm of my hands," he says as his experiment backfires much to the detriment of everybody involved  oops.
Thus is created Doctor Octopus or Doc Ock. He can climb buildings, throw four people around at once (as in the brilliant hospital sequence) and hates the interfering Spiderman whom he fights relentlessly for much of the film.
Spiderman 2 works so well because it blends reality and science fiction effortlessly. The main characters are all fully drawn, each with their own distinct personalities and problems. The so-called superhero questions his so-called life and the villains are the victims of their own self-imposed good intentions.
At the same time the film is a soaring visual effects feast with amazing stunts and set pieces. The best of these has to be the heart-stopping runaway train sequence and the time Parker, as Parker and not Spiderman, saves the life of a child in a burning building.
The acting is first-rate with McGuire playing a difficult part with passionate dexterity and a fine physical presence. Dunst does her best to keep up, Jameson is his usual scene-stealing self, and James Franco as Harry Osborne still wants revenge on Spiderman for killing his dad, but it's Molina as Doctor Octopus who gives Spiderman 2 its soul. A peace-loving scientist with only the best of intentions is transformed into a power-mad lunatic who, like everyone in the film, is given a choice at the end between living their dreams or doing what's right.
Rosemary Harris is excellent as Aunt May and says it best when she tells Peter, "Sometimes to do what's right we have to give up the things we want the most, even our dreams."
The special effects in Spiderman 2 are more elaborate and exciting than those in the first film thanks to magical work by special effects master John Dykstra ("2001" "Silent Running"). Each of Doc Ock's mechanical arms seem to have personalities all their own and the battles on the tops and sides of skyscrapers are masterpieces of Dykstra¹s art.
Director Sam Raimi has done it again. Since his first Evil Dead films through the extraordinary anti-superhero film "Darkman" to "Simple Plan" "The Gift" and 2002¹s " "Spiderman" Raimi has been a storyteller first and an action director second. With Spiderman 2 he has made one of the best superhero films ever, in a genre that is littered with stinkers like "The Punisher" and "Daredevil."
Just one minor peeve though: if all metal objects are pulled into the vortex of Doc Ock¹s massive experiment, how come the Doc and his metal arms don¹t go too?
There is a lot of depth here and some very emotional moments as when Peter Parker, like Hamlet, begs the big question:
"Am I not supposed to have what I want, what I need?" he cries hopelessly.
"What am I supposed to do?"
That is the question.
(Don't worry, in Spiderman 2 we get the answers.)