Spiderman 1.5

Rating: Null/10 (1 May 2006)

Poor Peter Parker (McGuire) has a crappy life and can't ever catch a break. Then he gets powers and takes up the mantle of spider-man, but that only causes him more grief. One of his scientist mentors then undergoes a dangerous experiment that gives him powers but warps his mind, who then goes out of his way to attack May Parker (Harris) and Mary Jane (Dunst). I know what you're thinking "Laserwolf65, I thought this is a review for Spider-man 2, not Spider-man." Well my inquisitive friend, you have already found the major flaw in this sequel, it's the exact same movie as the first one, with only a few new cast members, and subtle sub plot changes.
The movie starts off with peter parker getting laid off from his second job as a pizza delivery boy. We then find out that he can't pay his rent, his aunt is about to lose her house, he's losing his friendship to Harry (Franco), Mary Jane and Peter still have a love-hate relationship, his report on doctor Otto Octavius (Molina) is late, and to top it all off, his powers are no longer working correctly.
As the movie progresses Peter tries to remedy all of these problems, slowing down the main plot and lengthening the movie to over two hours. Spider-man doesn't even make an appearance (besides a brief sequence of him delivering a pizza with the suit on) until about forty minutes into it. The movie might as well be called: Peter Parker.
After over an hour the villain finally makes his appearance. Doctor Otto Octavius has created a machine that will produce a small sun-like reaction, which will produce cheap, renewable electrical energy using a fuel source called tritium, an element so rare that only twenty-five pounds of it exists (because we all know that cheap energy uses a non-renewable extremely rare element). So if that bit of science nonsense didn't faze you, how about this: In order to control it the good doctor created a harness with four long arms to handle the reaction. He also gave them each artificial intelligence (for apparently no reason), but don't worry, he built an extremely small and flimsy inhibitor chip that will stop them from taking over his mind. A few minutes into the experiment, the chip is busted, and Otto goes rogue terrorizing the city.
The problems with this movie are rampant. First, almost every important scene in the first Spider-man movie is repeated in Spidey 2. The scene where Goblin talks in the mirror is changed to Otto talking to his arms. The scene on the bridge where the citizens tell their love of spider is changed to patrons on a train telling their love of spidey. The list goes on and on. Secondly, while Molina does an all right job as Octavius, he's hardly in the movie at all. Instead, his screen time is taken away to focus on the completely moronic and unbelievable love triangle between Peter, Mary Jane, and her fiancÃ© John. Also, Raimi tries to infuse comedy into the movie where it doesn't belong. This includes an Asian lady singing the old spider-man TV show theme and Spider-man telling children to eat their green vegetables. None of these events are funny, and almost all of them are groan inducing. Indeed the only thing that is funny is J. Jonah Jameson, but sadly he's not too important a character and his scenes are few and far between. Finally there's the moronic explanation for why his powers aren't working ("maybe I'm not supposed to be spider-man" he thinks to himself.), and the painfully obvious setup for the next movie involving Harry Osborn.
This movie really only has two redeeming qualities; it's special effects (which are much better than the last movie's), and the Jameson scenes. Other than that it is simply a badly made remake of the first one. That said it's still better than the first movie (although that's not too hard a feat to achieve). **1/2/*****