One of my Favorite Movies!

Rating: 10/10 (10 August 2013)

I am gonna get this out of the way. I fricking love this movie! To me, this is the definitive light-hearted superhero movie. It works both as a summer blockbuster and as a sincere, human drama. But why is it so good? Let's take a look and find out!
Firstly, the story. While the first Spider-Man was a simple story about a young man who gets super powers and learning to be responsible with them, this film is a lot more complex than that. In this film, Peter is dealing with the struggles of being Spider-Man and having a normal life. Ultimately, his life becomes miserable for him. He can't get a steady job, he's failing his class, he can't pay his rent, and most importantly, he can't get into a relationship with Mary Jane. So he quits being Spider-Man and things start going better for him. He's getting good grades in his class and he can pursue a relationship with Mary Jane. But whenever he sees a crime in progress, he feels really guilty that he can't do anything about it and has to turn the other cheek. Eventually, he becomes Spider-Man again and saves the day and as reward, he gets a chance to be with Mary Jane.
What's great about this is that it all feels very human and relatable. We've all been in positions where we want to do something good but isn't getting much out of it. Peter in this film ultimately learns to become Spider-Man again but not because of guilt like in the first film, but because of the responsibility Uncle Ben taught him. It's all very real and human.
The villain here is Doc Ock. When this movie first came out, critics raved about how human and sympathetic his character was and I agree completely. He isn't some kind of generic super villain who wants revenge on Spidey or some stupid sh!t like that. He's just a man who lost his wife so the only thing he has to live for is his science experiment. Of course, along the way he does some pretty horrible stuff for this experiment but at the end of the film when Peter tells him what he said to him about intelligence and how it's a gift to be used for the good of mankind. He also tells him how sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most. So Doc Ock decides to sacrifice himself at the end to save the city from his experiment. The key theme of this movie is sacrifice and it's expressed beautifully with both the hero and the villain.
So there's some really excellent character stuff in this movie but what else is great about it? I think the tone of this movie is perfect. This movie deals with a lot of heavy themes like responsibility, sacrifice, heroism, etc but the tone of this movie never feels too depressing or brooding. It was a huge problem I had with Man of Steel but here, the tone is rather light-hearted and humorous. There's a lot of clever humor in this film that makes the film a really good summer movie experience.
I also love the way they made Peter in the beginning of the film. They make him so ridiculously miserable, it's hilarious! It makes the audience sympathize with him well because of how funny it gets. If it was done in a really sappy, tragic way then it would look melodramatic but thankfully, Raimi chose to play it as much for laughs as it is for drama. So you can laugh but still sympathize with Peter in this film.
The action scenes in this movie are pretty great too. The one that everyone raves over is the train fight and I agree. The fight choreography here is really quite creative and they take advantage well of all the things Spidey and Ock could do.
Overall, Spider-Man 2 is simply one of the best superhero movies out there. It's sincere, it's human, it's funny, it's exciting, and it's surprisingly complex so I am gonna give it a 10/10!