Inferior to the first, but still a good movie

Rating: 6/10 (23 February 2015)

"Spider-Man 2" is the second film from Sam Raimi's trilogy on everybody's favorite spider. It plays two years after the first film. Almost exactly 10 years ago, it won an Oscar for its visual effects and it was also the second most successful film in terms of money from 2004. Only the "Shrek" sequel topped it. There are quite a few parallels to the first film. The main antagonist is another brilliant scientist who seems to like Parker, but personal tragedy (in this case the death if his wife) happens and he goes over to the dark side. I have to say I did not like Doc Ock as much as the Green Goblin, but that has more to do with the greatness of the latter. Doc Ock is a fine villain on his own. Kirsten Dunst returns as Mary Jane and I'm still not completely sold with her, maybe because I don't find her particularly attractive and I can't see great acting range in her performances either. Also the whole love/cannot love her storyline got a bit repetitive by now and the fact that she was about to marry a famous astronaut and that pictures of her were seemingly hanging everywhere was a bit too much in the face for my taste. The wedding finale was extremely cheesy and I wish they could have finished differently. The "Go get them tiger!" does not help either. Maguire does a decent job, even if you occasionally still feel he is a strange choice for a superhero character. He was convincing, however, in depicting his ailing superpowers. And especially taking that into account, there seemed quite a few collisions where I was actually surprised Parker survived them in his human form. Same can be said about Molina's character.
In this movie, many people find out about Spider-Man's identity: the people in the train, Mary Jane, Harry and possibly also Aunt May. Rosemary Harris has some great scenes in this one. There is a fire scene that reminded me of the trap from the first movie, but this time it is real and a child was actually in danger. Would have been too repetitive if this had been staged again. There are also a couple funny moments in this movie. One would be "I'm back! I'm back! My back. My back." Apart from that, Jonah Jameson is the only character really intended exclusively for comedic reasons and J.K. Simmons made a job so great that the character was not included in the new Spider-Man films (starring Garfield), maybe because he did not reprise his character. And they also got him to do the voice work for the new Spider-Man animated series. On a side note, J.K. Simmons is an Academy Award winner since last night. The movie has two interesting versions of the Spider-Man theme song, one sung by an Asian woman in the middle of the movie and the other coming from Michael BublÃ© during the credits.
The last scene with James Franco (and Willem Dafoe) would also have worked as an intro to the third (and final) Spider-Man movie. This second movie is certainly worth a watch, especially if you enjoyed the first. Recommended.