raimi's big budget classic

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2005)

this sequel to a film where only one major flaw stood out was always going to be difficult, but Sam Raimi proves it can be done. gone is the annoying and over rated performance by William Daefoe in the first one, gone is the weak presence of green goblin, instead of the comic book adaption the first one was(however good it was), this is a proper movie. the first obvious difference is the more complex relationships between the characters, secondly the bad guy has presence, humour and a truly evil character, enforced by the amazing performance by Alfred Molina and finally Sam Raimi's touch, which is shown more then ever in this film.
the story itself is very basic. its being two years since peter Parker(played by Toby Maguire, who seems to empathise well with Peter's character) defeated the green goblin, but his problems are not over. struggling with his friend Harry Osbourne(with another good performance from James Franco); who blames Spiderman for the death of his father(green goblin)and obsesses about finding and killing him, peter also struggles with keeping his two jobs(one of which he is fired from early in the film), he cant pay the rent, and his love for Mary-Jane(played by Kirsten dunst), but inability to be with her causes a rift between the two. his school work also suffers and also brings him to meet doctor Otto Octavius, who plans to create power from stable fusion reactions, using his handy smart arms. however his experiment goes wrong leaving the smart arms grafted to his skin and in control of his actions and thoughts. convinced by the arms Otto(now doc ock) uses his new powers to gain the equipment needed. however spidey and doc ock only have one fight before, with all his problems peter loses faith in the path he choose and therefore begins to reject his powers. he gives up the life of a superhero and lives a normal live. however its not long before hes sporting the fetching tights again and kicking ock's ass! this time he even gets the girl.
this film has everything, action, comedy, it pulls on the heart strings and even has a horror element. the scene where Pete tells aunt may what really happened the night uncle Ben died is heart-breaking while some scenes will have you chuckling on the sofa. the hospital scene with doc ock is almost definitely Sam raimi's fond memories of the evil dead shining through and is probably one of the scariest scenes to make it onto a PG. the CGI is amazing and not over done considering the amount that was needed. all the performances are excellent (bar William daefoe's cameo) and everything about this film is professional and well done.
a must see!