Enjoyable.The Best Spiderman yet

Rating: 8/10 (11 May 2007)

Spiderman enters the Dark Side as a strange black entity from another world bonds with mild mannered photographer Peter Parker, and causes inner turmoil as he contends with new villains, temptations, and revenge.
In a somewhat desperate attempt to enhance recalcitrant Year 11 classes with the concept of relative versus absolute Morality, we dissected some scenes from the first movie where Our Hero has some very tough calls to make. At the end of the Year they all remembered watching the film clips, but as for the concepts I enjoyed these films more than the the Batman franchise, as to me they seem a bit lighter and with more humour as the former film got a bit unrelenting in the end.
The action, which is what holds the thing together after all was fantastic making good use, but not at the expense of the cast, of the available computer enhancements. The opening fight sequence has the feeling of one on one intensity but with a superb backdrop of back street New York.
The story shows Parker dealing with his ego and the added power afforded to him by the new entity, which gives him a black costume to go with the temptations to abuse his gifts, but the blackness is made up for with some good comedy scenes in a restaurant and then in a Jazz Club where the erstwhile photographer discovers his inner John Travolta, much to everyone's surprise.
The character relationships, complete with the usual romantic complications continue in this picture and we see Parker growing up and becoming far more Worldly Wise, having to deal with adult situations and emotions which osmosise into his alter ego's behaviour. Trouble at work and with his girlfriend, with the added angst of the fallout from his Uncle's death in Part One, add a decent story to complement the action.
Sandman is a new character, and an excellent villain engaging in the usual skulduggery (I actually sympathised with him which I'm not sure the writers wanted) but as usual, and predictably the ending turned into a moralising, flag waving tribute to the concept of "America". If only the truth mirrored fiction.
That's churlish. It's comes with the deal when you buy a ticket and doesn't detract from a fun experience, which is perhaps twenty minutes too long.