Spider-Man 2 (2004)

What does it take to balls up and make a sequel to a perfect super-hero movie? Balls up and make the sequel perfect as well.

In Spider-Man 2 even the opening credits are perfect. Well not the credits themselves, but the included paintings that retell the entire story of the first movie. Add in the fact that they were painted by comic art legend Alex Ross! We go right from that to a movie that just loves kicking Peter Parker in the crotch. The first thing that happens; he’s delivering pizza, stops to save some kids, ends up being late with the delivery, and as a result gets fired. That is just a brutal way to start a movie about a kid trying to do the right thing.

Skipping over a lot of other depressing stuff in Peter’s life, we’re introduced to the pre-villain Otto Octavious as he and Peter begin to bond over their love of science and the idea of finding one’s soul mate. Of course things go wrong with Otto’s big experiment so he and Peter have to punch each other to work things out. Isn’t that always how it is?

Ok, so more specifically we get a great origin story for Dr. Octopus where his life’s work nearly killed all of downtown New York therefore ruining his credibility, and on top of that the accident ended up killing his wife, the only person he had in the world. Because of this we get the first Raimi-esque scene in years. As surgeons prepare to remove the metal arms fused to Dr. Octavius’ body, the arms begin defending themselves and we’re shown this through several quick cuts, fast zooms, people screaming, blood flying, humorous focuses, and stylish lighting. As a HUGE Evil Dead/Army of Darkness fan I almost wet myself because of how cool this was.

While they did skip on showing Spider-Man fighting random street crime, the fight scenes between Doc Oc and Spidey are plentiful and fantasticalnominal. This does lead to my only complaint for the movie; Spider-Man has super strength yet he can land a punch to Dr. Octopus’ face without it just caving in. Not only that, but his sunglasses remain intact. A small gripe but I figured it should be mentioned.

The rest of the cast really stepped it up for this sequel as well, especially James Franco as we watched Harry Osborn slowly go more and more insane because of his belief that Spider-Man killed his father, a father who he was always trying to receive approval from. This culminates in not only brilliantly setting up another sequel but also a very surprising, though brief, return of Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn, now a psychosis induced vision of Harry’s.

And to take a brief step back to the depressing stuff that keeps happening to Peter, this goes a long way to mirroring the comics where Peter is constantly struggling to keep every aspect of his life from falling apart. In the movie Peter gives up on being Spider-Man under the assumption that everything’s going to be fine from here on out, but the first thing we see as he walks happily without a care in the world, is him tripping/falling on the sidewalk. Raimi has made sure that everyone should understand one simple thing: It sucks being Peter Parker.

Much like X-Men 2, this sequel flows perfectly almost to the point where with a little modification to the closing of the first and the opening of the second, it could be one really long movie.

Version 2.1 Note: See this! If not for the extended train fight sequence, then for a new scene of JK Simmons TOTALLY hamming it up and stealing the show!

Marvel Movie Score = 10

Why That?: Like the first one the only faults are so minor it’s ridiculous to even address them. And I really don’t have much more to say about it because it’s just kicks so much ass.