Good but not without flaws

Rating: Null/10 (27 July 2004)

Spider-Man is not a superhero. He's two. He's an outcast just like the Hulk or the X-Men, but unlike those he has two very different personalities in Peter Parker and Spider-Man. He shares that with Superman and Batman. I hate to call Batman a superhero (where's his superpowers?  last time I checked a large bank account didn't qualify) but you get the picture.
Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) is so depressed in this movie that he actually stops being Spider and just becomes Man. He realizes he wants a normal life with the love his life Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) who has become very tired of waiting and instead gets engaged with an astronaut. The first part of the movie is all about the bad sides of being a superhero. Tiresome work fighting bad guys, no money and a small and depressing apartment with a landlord that has decided to make your life a hell. Even a scene with symbolism for the insane where his Spider-Man costume colors his white clothes red and blue. Awww ...
But just as he has thrown away his costume (why not sell it, if you're so poor?) the city needs him again. The physician Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) installs four artificially intelligent and (apparentely) indestructible tentacles on his back that takes over his mind during a failed experiment. He becomes Doctor Octopus or "Doc Ock" and the enemy of the city (New York) and every person who lives in it. But Octavius is not evil in himself. He's more like Frankenstein's monster with the difference that he created himself. I won't comment on the high-tech part of the film, being so ridiculously unbelievable that it doesn't matter. Speaking of matter, did I forget to mention that once Doc Ock has been mean to a bunch of people and a bank, he hides outside the city to create some weird ball of fusion that will suck all matter surrounding it and become even bigger and stronger.
Spider-Man 2 is funny, but not because of the dialogue. It's the small things that does it, and Tobey Maguire with his very subtle gestures. I actually laughed out loud once, and the rest of the cinema audience at least seven times. It is also romantic, more so than the first movie. Mary Jane's patience finally running out, Parker weighing superhero powers to love and deciding on the latter, etc. And the action scenes and special effects are better than those in the first movie. The tentacles are a nice work of art, and the fight on the train a thrilling moment, better than any scene from the first movie.
So yes, I am concluding that Spider-Man 2 is better than its predecessor. The good parts are all better, and the ending (the worst part) is the same. But there are two other things with this movie that I don't like that weren't so apparent in the first one. First out is the role of Mary Jane. It's somewhat contradicting to itself, and let me explain why:
In the intro, the only real photograph you see among all the drawings is Mary Jane's. It's a subtle way to say that her role is to Spider-Man what the sun is to the Earth (or anything that circles around something else). I don't mind her being passive throughout the movie, but here she is too much so. She even gets kidnapped and has to be saved a bunch of times by Spider-Man. I hope she gets a bigger role in the third movie.
The second thing is the out-of-place dialogue. I don't know how many times people said stuff that no normal person would say in such a situation. For instance the train driver who mocks Spider-Man when he's about to save his life. Or Doc Ock's "important" comment on Parker's laziness in the end of the movie.
Other than that this was a good movie. I rate it way higher than the Hulk and slightly above X-Men 2.