Magnificent in some ways, disappointing in others

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2004)

*slight spoilers*
Spiderman 2 is a decent sequel to 2002's spiderman, and if not for minor quibbles, would be an excellent movie. This is probably one of, if not the best, comic book adaptation in the history of film. Like the first movie, the way the movie is shot parallels the way comic books are drawn, witch scores major points for the movie with me. The dialogue is also faithful to that found in comic books, and this is were the movie falls short for me. In comic books, conversation between the characters doesn't have to be good; there is an ongoing and ever-evolving story to keep the reader interested. In a film however, were characters (that in books span entire volumes) are condensed into one appearance per film, and when that appearance focuses on the origin and destruction of the character, you better have some interesting dialogue to back up the movie. It's nice that the movie focuses on the "humanistic" side of a superhero, but many of the films scenes feel drawn out and almost redundant. OK, we get that Mary Jane and Peter Parker are inexorably doomed to be apart, isn't that what most of the first movie is about? The beginning is especially slow-paced. One major flaw of the movies is (spoiler) the scene in the cafe were the car fly's through the window. If Dr. Octopus were merely trying to scare Peter Parker, he would not hurl a car directly through a cafe window at him...it would more than likely KILL PETER PARKER THE MAN. The only reason he survives is because he is Spiderman. Unless Dr. Octopus somehow knows this, and there is no hint in the movie that he does, than this scene makes absolutely no sense, and exists just for the purpose of showing a really "cool" scene were spiderman flies through the window and Peter Parker dodges it. Actually, if I remember correctly, later on in the movie when Spider-Man reveals himself, Dr. Octopus says "Parker?." The person I saw the movie with said that the scene did make sense, because if he happened to kill Parker he would just go back and rough up Harry until he gave him what he needed. In that case, why would he go through the trouble of finding Parker just to kill him? Unless he knew he was spiderman, witch he didn't, and in witch case Harry would probably not believe that Parker was Spider-Man anyway.
This one flaw really killed some of the movie for me, but if you don't mind errors like that, then this movie should be pretty fun for you and your family.
7/10