Spider Sense-tingling.

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2008)

Grander, faster, slicker than its predecessor, director Sam Raimi's Spiderman 2 is more action-packed, more thrill-rided, more rollercoastered than Spiderman (2002) - but though its plaudits stretch skyscraper tall, its demerits run Mariana Trench deep.
Based loosely on the comicbook episode Spiderman No More, plot finds Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina, in strapping scenery-chewing mien) "tampering in God's domain" (as they used to say in 50s B-Movies) trying to subvert the Second Law of Thermodynamics (as they should be saying now, if it weren't for science riding backseat to Jamaican "psychics" and George W. Bush's mongoloid church administration - the second law being that you can't get more energy out of a system than you put into it).
Of course, everything goes to hell with big explosions and "Doc Ock" natchelly ends up a supervillain - with four steel-belted, evil arms fused to his inner Manson.
And Spidey must save the day.
But Spiderman/Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), perpetually mooning over Mary-Jane (Kirsten Dunst's Breasts), experiences a psychosomatic loss of powers and renounces his web-slinging in favor of the geek life. Thus - Spiderman No More.
It is only when Doc Ock threatens his breasty bimbo that he realizes he must reconcile his inner freak with his outer geek.
Overall, Spiderman 2 sells its product, but falls down in niggly details: Peter loses his job as a pizza delivery guy because he couldn't make good on a "29 Minute Guarantee" - but what kind of insane, coke-addled pizza parlor would make that kind of guarantee over a 42-block radius in the heart of New York City?; Doc Ock robs banks to buy the components for his evil machine - but why not grab a supervillain nut (whilst cutting out the middle man) and simply STEAL the parts?
Visual clichÃ©s to grind your teeth by: Peter at a high-class soiree, having every last hors d'oeuvre picked out from under him (it worked for Peter Sellers); bride running through streets in slomo (it worked for Julia Roberts); shot of Spiderman costume hanging decoratively out of a trashcan (worked as a comicbook cover - lame as a live action); there is even a grandiose "Noooooo!" scene with Doc Ock - this movie has everything!
And can we stop with the screaming? That convention of B-Movie Screaming Damsel is now officially getting on my nerves. From hospital nurses to hot chicks, from Mary-Jane to Aunt May - every woman in Spiderman 2 screams exactly the same way; whether a flat-bellied model or Peter's septuagenarian aunt, they all somehow capture that identical frequency of high-pitched, nerve-fraying, cochlear irritation. And frankly, I'm sick of it! Who screams that way in real life? If I were to become a superhero by some freakish radioactive ferret bite to the buttocks, and I had to save some supermodel damsel in distress, I'd insist she cease that confounded insensate shrieking if she valued her taut, Body-by-Jake ass.
And Spiderman takes his mask off too much. Why? Because he can't emote through the fabric. When his powers fail, it is more effective to pull off the mask and look dumbfounded than let the mask tilt its head and say, "Huh?" And how much more effective to stop a train, mask-less, straining with neck-bulging effort, rather than letting his round-headed alter-ego smoothly halt it?
That astounding train sequence. The thought and detail that went into that scene rivals that of any movie ever made - so many minute details all working together to create a breath-stopping experience - and plausible, in that world where these super beings live. As just one example of those thousands of details - when Spiderman smashes out through the train windows sideways, he shoots his web with both hands back at the body of the train and pulls himself back onto the side of the moving train.
Unlike the Batman movies, we always see Spiderman CLEARLY - especially in the elevator (riding with Queer as Folk's Hal Sparks, a real life comics aficionado in a riotous cameo).
Spiderman's theme - that horn line, which always makes me stifle a tear - is epic in its sweeping poignancy, tastefully regal, a superhero's theme. And the web-swinging tears the breath from your lungs with its breakneck daredevilry.
Peter reveals his identity to Mary-Jane in the most auspicious of heroic deeds - he holds up a building that is about to topple on her. Isn't it every schoolboy's fantasy to meet a girl that way?
And I love that his head is the exact, correct roundness.