more than eye candy

Rating: 9/10 (19 July 2004)

Two years ago, when I saw "Spiderman," I figured it would be an action movie--some good summertime eye candy. Boy, was I wrong! It was an intelligent love story which happened to involve a superhero. And at a time when most sequels are made to try gouge Americans at the box office, "Spiderman 2" is a rare exception.
The story continues two years after Harry Osborne (James Franco) buried his father. Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) is a Broadway star, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) delivers pizzas while studying as an undergrad at (I assume) Columbia, and Harry is running OsCorp. Harry is obsessed with avenging his father's death, which he still blames on Spiderman, and takes it out on Peter. Meanwhile, Jonah Jameson's (JK Simmons) is still ripping off his freelancers while he prepares for his son's wedding... to MJ.
So Dr. Octavious (Alfred Molina), Peter's hero and the subject of his term paper, finds a way to harness the power of the sun using the four-clawed back attachment. Of course, the prototype is a complete disaster, and instead of controlling the prototype, it controls Dr. Octavious (now Doc Ock).
Much of the action is formulaic, but the storyline (especially the love story) and the effects make up for it. It also helped that the entire cast of the original is back, including Rosemary Harris (as Aunt May), Cliff Robertson (as Uncle Ben), and Willem Dafoe (as Norman Osborne).
There's a great foreshadow into "Spiderman 3," which will probably come out in the summer of 2006.