Product: Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Rating: 4.0
Good for Geeks, Though a Bit Short on Features
If you liked Spider-man 2, you should love Spider-man 2.1. The extra scenes are all great scenes that add nuance to the already-excellent film. They're mostly extra character bits, things that weren't needed, but certainly help paint the picture. The extra bits are so well-blended into the old footage that I didn't even recognize one new shot as such until, when watching the original version again, I noticed that it wasn't there.Most memorable to me were J. Jonah Jameson wearing his newly-found Spider-man suit and pretending that he's the superhero, a much more rational and less venal confrontation between Peter and Harry at his birthday party (I'd always thought that scene in the original version was a bit choppy and emotionally sporadic) and a wonderful conversation between Mary Jane and her Maid-of-Honor about why she's marrying John Jameson.The DVD set was lacking in features. There is a new commentary track featuring Producer Laura Ziskin and Writer Steve Ditko, but it's not very interesting. In addition, the other two commentary tracks were removed. For commentary buffs like myself, this should not be.Most of the rest of the special features are all new, including a featurette about the new material. Unfortunately, these few extras have replaced the old bonus disc. You could do what I did, find a cheap copy of the original Spider-man 2, keep that bonus disc and give the movie itself to a friend so you have a 3-disc set, but that seems a lot to do just to have the complete set of bonus features.In all, I would highly recommend this version. If you're a Spider-man fan or just a DVD geek, get this movie, just be prepared to have less bonus features than before.