Spider-Man 2: Review By Daveactor7

No doubt, the best of the trilogy by director Sam Raimi. Here, he makes sure to go the distance. We are enveloped in the far troubling world of Peter Parker and his now change of perception about his wall crawling alter ego. Tobey Maguire again puts on the iconic suit and here he gives his character a stronger approach.

Warning Spoilers follow***

With the inclusion of Spider man in his life, Peter struggles to keep up with life. Attend college, work, spend more time with family and friends, but yet he is always caught in a sticky web which refuses to let him go. Because of this, his love Mary Jane Watson, played by a very decent performance by Kirsten Dunst, has fallen for another man. His aunt is struggling financially, his best friend Harry Osborn, played by a good James Franco, is obsessed with hunting down Spider man under the wrong notion that he believes that the hero killed his father. With love connecting the three most important people in his life, it weighs heavily on him. This is what I actually considered an upgrade from the previous film. There is more emotional problems, it helps Maguire attain a strong ground for him to work on.

Adding to the emotional strain is Dr. Otto Octavius, played by a good Alfred Molina, a scientist hoping to make it big with an experiment that will change the world. Funded by Oscorp, the company bestowed onto Harry after his father's death, this dream the scientist had will finally become reality. After years of research, the end is within his grasp. Speaking of grasp, Octavius builds new systematics of technology, four long metallic arms, which enable him to interact with his risky experiment. What I liked here was how Octavius explains the artificial intelligence within these arms, that they are as intelligent as he is. Meaning, he can be vulnerable to them. The intelligence counteracts with Octavius's later on, when he escapes from the hospital which he is sent to when his experiment ends in disastrous results. The intelligence tells him to steal money and finish what he had started. It is a little far-fetched, but then again motivation is needed to turn one into a villain. Look at Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight" for example. He is traumatized by the death of his love Rachel and add to that, the Joker whom gives him that motivation. That gives rise to, what I considered a villain, Two face.

Octavius also had a love in this film, Rosie. She dies in the course of the experiment, but her death never really seems to impact his character throughout the rest of the film. He just goes right back on track to focusing on achieving success. That is just one of the things that I disliked about this film. Acting wise-I felt Kirsten Dunst did her best work in Spider man 3 then in the other two films and that says quite a lot. Here her character is still in love with Peter and she comes to understand the possibility that Peter is Spider man. She seriously just seems to be better at kissing here rather then putting work into her character. The decent work I saw from her in this film was when she talked with Peter in the coffee shop. Her facial expressions and exchange of dialogue was not bad there. I have not seen her improving much in her recent films, but the one who has changed the most is James Franco.

Franco went from doing a good enough job here to earning his first oscar nomination for this year's "127 hours". Going back to his work on this film, I thought his performance was right on. Spider man still fluent on his mind and Peter, his best friend, is the only obstacle in his way to attain him. Boy, does he receive a shock when he unmasks him. My favorite scene with him? When he is at the Museum of Natural History, where Peter is sent to capture photographs of his boss, J. Jonah Jameson's son, whom is engaged to..Mary Jane. Being drunk and infuriated with him thinking that Peter is defending the superhero, he slaps him and yells, and what he said actually did well in leaving an impact on Peter, who is already coping with Mary Jane. If I were Peter, I would have felt the same way he was feeling in that scene, embarrassed and frustrated.

Now, focusing on his love for Mary Jane, this is a major part of the film. Peter starts losing his powers. The web shooting, the wall-crawling, his super strength, all of that dissolves away. Octavius summed it up best in the film "If you keep something as complicated as love deep inside, it'll make you sick" That is what literally what happens to Peter. With this added to the enormous stress on his life, he decides to cut Spider man from his life and what a joyous feeling that is for him. To be part of normality again.

My favorite scene Is when Peter comes across a burning building. He prepares himself to turn into his alter-ego, but he is no longer Spider man. Yet, he runs into the building and he goes against tremendous odds to save a little girl's life despite not having powers. This confirms Peter as the hero he is, and the one he is meant to be. He risked his life for a girl he did not even know, just like Spider man would. He does all he can to regain his powers, testing his physical abilities to see if he has his powers back, yet he does not know that love is what is keeping him from regaining his powers. Meeting Mary Jane again, she tries to get a kiss from him, a kiss she wants to see matches that of Spider man, the one who had saved her life many times. Of course the bad guy shows up at this time and Octavius takes her captive. Peter's strong love for her is reestablished and his powers all return. Well, you can guess what happens after that.

I was very entertained by this sequel and though it has its flaws, it still manages to keep going, never dragging and always keeping its head up. The dramatic scenes are just as good as the action sequences, unlike some films in which the action is the main focus of the film. Here we meet the characters, come to love them in the dramatic scenes and then cheering them on in the action sequences, well mainly Maguire to be exact. The visual effects in the film was great, garnering the trilogy's only oscar win, but yet it still deserved it. The interaction of the FX work with the actors, the nonstop action, just added more to the film's already huge potential.

Overall, see this and if you have already seen this, you will see again in your life again and again. You will never lose interest in this film.

This has been a review by daveactor7