The Spider-Man Retrospective Series - Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Written In May 2014

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Peter Parker struggles to balance his crime-fighting duties as Spider-Man with the demands of his normal life. Estranged from both love interest Mary Jane Watson and best friend Harry Osborn, who intends to seek revenge on Spider-Man for his father Norman’s death, Peter additionally discovers his Aunt May is facing foreclosure.

Harry, now head of Oscorp’s research division, sponsors the brilliant nuclear scientist Otto Octavius, who, dreaming of perfecting sustained fusion power, wears a harness of powerful robotic tentacle arms with artificial intelligence while conducting his research. When a power spike causes an experiment to destabilize rapidly, Octavius stubbornly refuses to shut the experiment down, leading to disastrous consequences: his wife is killed, the neural inhibitor chip which keeps the arms from influencing his mind is destroyed and the arms are fused to his spine. Spider-Man arrives and shuts down the experiment before it can do any further damage.

At a hospital, doctors prepare to surgically remove Octavius’ arms and harness, but the arms, having developed sentience from the inhibitor chip’s destruction, spring to life and attack the medical crew, killing most of them. Upon regaining consciousness and seeing the carnage, Octavius escapes and hides at a harbor. The arms convince him to retry the experiment. To fund it, Octavius — now called Doctor Octopus by the Daily Bugle — robs a bank.

After Peter misses Mary Jane’s debut play, she, in retaliation, becomes engaged to astronautJohn Jameson, son of Bugle chief J. Jonah Jameson. Peter suffers an emotional breakdown causing him to believe he’s lost his powers. He abandons his Spider-Man identity and returns to his normal life while trying to reconcile with Mary Jane.

A garbageman brings Spider-Man’s costume to J. Jonah Jameson, who takes credit for Spider-Man’s disappearance. Peter tells Aunt May that his Uncle Ben’s death some time ago was his fault. May forgives him, but when his 9-year-old neighbor learns of Spider-Man’s disappearance and the subsequent rising crime rate in New York City, Peter becomes concerned.

Octavius needs tritium to fuel his reactor and goes to Harry to demand it. Harry initially refuses because the experiment threatens to level the city, but he eventually agrees in exchange for Spider-Man and tells him that Peter, who is supposedly good friends with Spider-Man, is the key to finding him. However, Harry tells Octavius not to harm Peter. Octavius finds Peter, tells him to find Spider-Man, and abducts Mary Jane. Peter realizes his powers are restored and dons his costume again after stealing it from the Bugle.

As Spider-Man battles Octavius, they fall onto a rapid transit R train. Octavius disables the controls and jumps off. Spider-Man stops the train before the track ends. When he faints from exhaustion, the passengers carry him into one of the cars. He comes to and realizes his mask is off, but the passengers are so grateful they vow not to reveal what he looks like. Octavius returns, demanding Spider-Man, and subdues the passengers. After knocking out Spider-Man, Octavius delivers him to Harry.

After giving Octavius the tritium, Harry prepares to kill Spider-Man, only to be shocked to see it is really Peter. Peter convinces him greater things are at stake, and Harry reveals Octavius’ location. Spider-Man arrives at the doctor’s waterfront laboratory and tries to rescue Mary Jane discreetly. One of Octavius’ tentacles senses him, and they fight. Spider-Man ultimately subdues Octavius, reveals his identity, and convinces Octavius to let go of his dream for the greater good. Octavius finally commands the tentacles to obey and drowns the fusion reactor, along with himself, in the Hudson River. Mary Jane discovers Spider-Man’s true identity and feelings, as well as why they cannot be together. Spider-Man returns Mary Jane to John and leaves.

Harry is visited by a vision of his father, pleading for Harry to avenge his death. Refusing to hurt Peter, Harry shatters the mirror, revealing a secret room containing the Green Goblin’s equipment. On her wedding day, Mary Jane admit her true feelings for Peter. They kiss, hear a police chase, and she encourages him to respond as Spider-Man.

 PROS:

• Tobey, Kirsten, Rosemary, and James all do the same great work they did last movie, in fact I’d say it’s arguably that having slightly meatier roles this time around gives them a little more stretching room, although I’d still say Franco is the weakest of the bunch. That final scene with him throwing a knife at his father’s reflection screaming “No!” Just felt kind of off to me, but then again, a lot of great actors sound kind of stupid just screaming no. Take for example, this scene.
  
  
  That was fucking James Earl Jones delivering that line! Don’t feel too bad that James Franco sounded kind of stupid saying the same line here.
• Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus. This guy is right on par with Dafoe’s Goblin, I don’t like him as much as Dafoe, but I think Dafoe is a flawless human being so I think that’d be disappointing no matter what. But I really like the set up stuff for him before he actually becomes Doc Ock. You see this guy is a brilliant but arrogant man who clearly cares about the world around him. A little detail I kinda liked was when he was talking to Peter about his lady troubles he notes that the perfect way to make a woman fall in love with you is poetry. He makes no illusion to sex or make a lowbrow gag about getting into a girl’s pants, he only speaks about love. Affection, not lust. Speaking from the heart you have one, not thinking with your cock because you are one. I kinda liked that. But! When he switches into bad guy mode, he rocks at it. He plays Ock with a certain dry dark humored wit, like the scene where he’s holding Aunt May hostage and Spidey demands that he hand her to him, he replies “Of course.” Slowly handing him to her but letting go of her right before Peter can actually lay a finger on her. He then mock apologizes saying “Butter fingers.” Also cool, is the fact that a lot of the time the arms weren’t done with CG. They were done with puppets. I could go on and on about this actor’s performance as this character, but I won’t bother. It speaks for itself.
• The Ditkovichs. I don’t know what it is about these two, but there’s something I genuinely adore about this immigrant father and daughter duo. I can’t quite tell whether Ursula has a romantic crush on Peter or just has one of those friend crushes, you know where you meet someone and you just think “Oh, I really want to be this person’s friend, but they’re too cool! Oh, should I talk to them, or should I not? Oh, I don’t know what to do!” Something like that. While Mr. Ditkovich is just the funniest thing to me. He’s always busting Peter’s balls about the damn rent. I especially love the bit where Peter has to use the apartment restroom for a shower and knocks because he’s polite, and Mr. Ditkovich just walks right past him and heads on in, he then opens the door back up and goes “Rent?” And Peter doesn’t even verbally react, he just closes the freaking door on him. I laughed hard at that, I’m not even sure why.
• I think Spider-Man 3 has the best action of the series, but Spider-Man 2 is no slouch in this respect, I can assure you. Not only is the aforementioned train fight kick ass, the bank fight is pretty epic too. Also, can I just say, that bit with the umbrella to face, you go Aunt May!
• The title sequence was pretty cool in the first movie, but I love how this one recaps that last movie in a montage of artwork by none other than the great comic book artist and painter, the man himself… Alex Ross!
  
  
  And with Danny Elfman’s kick ass theme playing over it! Seriously, I forgot to put that as a pro last time, I’m not forgetting this time. Give it a listen! It’s like a fucking James Bond credits sequence! God!
• Dylan Baker’s quick appearance as Dr. Conners is a nice nod to comic fans and I really wish that we’d gotten to see him become the Lizard. You get the feeling he knows something is up with Peter but respects his personal business enough to actually ask, but still feels utterly confused why this clearly brilliant student is fucking up his classes so badly!
• JK Simmons is still awesome. In fact, he may have become even MORE awesome!
• The cameos from Willem Dafoe and Cliff Robertson as Norman and Uncle Ben respectively are fantastic and well done, I also find it interesting that both appeared in visions to their respective sons telling them to act in a direction they both refuse to take course on. I don’t know if that was intentional on the part of Sam Raimi and the writers, but it sure is an interesting rhyme, especially given the thematic rhyme it has with Norman attempting (intentionally or not) to take up Ben’s place as Peter’s father figure and Peter ultimately refusing to accept him as such.
• Speaking of Norman, I freaking loved the final scene of Harry throwing the knife at the mirror and walking through it to find his father’s old laboratory where he stored his weapons and armor as the Green Goblin. You just know that if this movie was made today this would’ve been a post credits scene like the Bucky scene at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier was, and that actually makes me glad they didn’t do that. I like that they made you want to see the next movie with the movie you’re watching now. I mean that’s kind of the real logic of the sequel isn’t it? People loved this story, let’s expand upon it and see if they like it too.
• During the very last scene of the movie, MJ tells Peter that she understands why he says that they can’t be together, but asks him why she can’t respect him enough to make her own decision. She loves this man and wants to be with him, she doesn’t give a damn if she’s going to be put in danger, she’ll face it if means they’ll be together. I like this scene because it again shows the realism of what a superhero couple would be like. If you truly love someone, are you going to genuinely care when they have to go out to risk their life? No, you’re not. Ask the spouse of any police officer or firefighter.
• I really dug the plot of Peter losing his powers because of his lack of confidence, and I really like how when he assumes he’s lost them for good, he actually tries to pursue the things he previously had little time for. But the minute he realizes that he simply can’t not be a hero, he actually takes a moment of introspection. He outright asks “Am I not supposed to have what I want? What I need? What am I supposed to do?” You can feel the frustration in it, and it’s really great subtle acting from Tobey. Here is a guy who at one point thought his entire purpose in life was being a hero, then he let himself think “Maybe, I can just be Peter Parker. Maybe, I’m not supposed to be climbing walls.” And then here he is, feeling his powers coming back, and knowing that he can’t keep kidding himself. He is a hero. He’s mad at himself, he’s mad at his life, and if you wanna go there, he’s probably even mad at God. :You’re the one who allowed these things to happen to me, You’re the one who allowed for me to lose my power, You’re the one who made me so that I must be heroic then You made me not be that now You’re making me be that again. What is Your logic!“ I love it.
• If there’s one last time I’m gonna suck Tobey Maguire’s dick, it’s the scene where he admits to Aunt May that Uncle Ben’s death was his fault. He knows he can’t outright say where he was, what he went to do, and what he did after that, but he still wants to tell her what happened. And I love Rosemary’s reaction. It’s just so cold. She gets up out of her seat, she doesn’t even look at Peter, she just gets up, turns around, and quietly goes upstairs. She’s emotionally exhausted as is, she probably didn’t need her nephew to admit he was indirectly responsible for her husband’s death.

CONS:

• It’s always annoyed me that Harry automatically assumed Spider-Man had killed his father even though his track record as a heroic figure suggests more than likely he was just bringing a dead man home to his family, because said man was a public figure, but it really annoys me that he still thinks this two years after the fact! Dude, why the fuck would a guy who risks his life to stop crimes every day want to kill your father?
• If you thought Man of Steel used to much Christ Symbolism, and that this scene was the biggest offender
  
  
  Then I kindly refer you to this scene here. 
  
  Yeah… And here’s a question, how the fuck is Spider-Man in anyway like Jesus? I get the comparison with Superman, but why Spidey? Come to think of it, what’s with the superhero comparisons to Jesus anyways? Did Peter Parker or Clark Kent ever die for our sins?
  
  Oh… Well then… Uh…

To be honest, I can’t think of why I said I like this film less than the others because just sitting here talking to you about really makes me love it! I love Spider-Man 2, I think it’s arguably one of the best superhero movies ever made! Right up there with Dark Knight and Avengers in my opinion! I’m gonna give Spider-Man 2 a 9.3 out of 10!