My Review of "Spider-Man 2"

Spider-Man 2 came out in 2004. It was a much anticipated sequel. No one anticipated this movie to be as good as it was. Sequels are always considered inferior to the original. We still only have handful of franchises that show us how this is possible. I remember when this movie first came out. It blew our minds.

The movie starts off close to 2 years after the events of the first movie. We have the high drama of the first movie still in our heads. All of those dramatic pieces come into play in this sequel. Peter is now Spider-Man, Mary Jane is still friends with Peter however she's trying to figure her life out and Harry is still trying to figure out who Spider-Man is so he can have his revenge.

This movie has a realistic portrayal of Peter in the thankless pursuit of being Spider-Man. There is no pay for the job so he's living in a really run down apartment with practically no money. He's barely surviving economically. His social/work/education life has taken a huge hit because he's so busy being Spider-Man. Anyone would crumble with that type of pressure on them. In this movie, this is starting to take a toll and Peter is starting to get performance issues with his powers as a result.

I love the fact that they did this because it shows that his powers are based on his investment into life. He has no one to fight for after a while and starts losing his motivation and thus loses his powers. Only when his loved ones are in danger does his power truly amplify.

Speaking of his loved ones I liked how Aunt May took on the new role of mentor to Peter as Uncle Ben died in the last movie. Aunt May is the voice of reason for Peter and I particularly liked it when she and Spider-Man help take on Doctor Octopus.

There's so much to love about this movie. The villain again is a bi-polar character just like the first movie and again we can understand his motivations. This time we have Doctor Octopus who has spent his life trying to better the world by creating nuclear fission. His calculations are wrong but his ego is overrun by an artificial intelligence he created with some helping arms.

Every character gets some significant light in this movie but we never forget it's Peter's story. The tug of war love angle between Peter and Mary Jane is really fun. At times it can feel a bit comedic. In the past I only saw Peter's side of the story but watching it now I totally understand Mary Jane's motivation to want to move on with her life with another person. Again everything makes logical sense.

Of course not everything makes logical sense as it is a movie based on a popular comic book. You have to really pick your battles but overall it is a very well thought out story that is extremely fun to watch even after 20 years.

I mentioned in my review for the first movie that it resembled the Tim Burton Batman movies. This one is entirely different. There is a whole new feel and direction to this that has a lot of horror like elements. I loved this because it gave this movie a lot more personality. There are a lot of different types of close ups that play around with music. There's dynamic camera angles with everything carefully placed to make it look like a comic book. There's a lot to love about this direction. It also felt more original.

Overall, I go back and forth about which movie I like more I lean towards this one a little more than the first. When this came out I couldn't believe that they made a sequel better than the first but they pulled it off. After 20 years this movie still stands the test of time. I loved it and still think it's a classic that's why I have to give it a 9.5 out of 10.