Sad sad sad

Rating: 4/10 (3 March 2005)

I expected to love this film. The first Spiderman film was beautifully done and I'm a big fan of Sam Rami's work. I never dreamed it would turn out to be so badly plotted, poorly scripted, self-indulgent, over-stuffed and under-edited.
To be fair, there were several good points. J.K. Simmons is a joy to watch as he nails the J. Jonah Jameson character -- his scenes are the best in the movie -- and the Doc Ock role could not have been more perfectly cast than with Alfred Molina. The action scenes were the best I've ever seen when it comes to capturing the feel of comic book action sequence. Unfortunately, much of the writing was equally true to capturing the feeling of comic book thought balloons -- and in a movie, that's bad.
Worse, much of the plot made no sense at all -- the entire subway fight was spectacular but completely contrary to the villain's objectives. The resolution to the Doc Ock threat was insipid at best, and the entire first hour was painfully dull. Everything in it could have been fully established and better done in 30 minutes -- 40, tops.
Raimi's usually deft touch with humor was painfully absent. The broad comedy was overdone, highly repetitious and delivered with a sledge hammer. At the end, I felt I'd just watched Spiderman Meets Abbott and Costello, with poor Tobey Maguire being forced to play Spiderman and Abbott and Costello.
This was a terrible disappointment for this Sam Raimi (and Spiderman) fan.