Back in June, I devoted an entire entry to
ranting about how confused and ridiculous 2002’s Spider-Man is, no
matter what the bulk of the critics and movie-goers would have you believe. I don’t want to drive a stake through it or
anything. It’s just a bad movie. Surprisingly enough, I was not driven out of
the superhero fandom on a rail for expressing this opinion, so here I am,
testing my luck again by reviewing the equally stupid 2004 sequel, Spider-Man
2.
After sitting through the credits, which helpfully recap the events of the first movie for anyone who hasn’t seen the original, we start the same way we started the first one: with morose narration from our so-called hero about how much he loves Mary Jane but can’t be with her. Huh. Maybe watching the first film isn’t necessary after all, since we don’t appear to have made any progress since then.
Now I know this might come as a shock to you,
but Peter’s life hasn’t been going well lately.
He gets fired from his job as a pizza delivery guy for Aasif
Mandvi. At his other job as a freelance
photographer, he has to pick between keeping his job or giving J. Jonah
Jameson, the newspaper editor, Spidey pics that he knows will just be used to
vilify his own alter ego. He tries to get
to class on time, only to drop all his books on the sidewalk. And then the person he bumps into calls him a
jerk as other people step on his things.
Okay, I’ve been to college (though, granted, not in New York), and nobody is that mean. They might not help you pick up your stuff, but they’re not gonna call you names and stomp all over you. And then, just in case you haven’t picked up on the fact that Peter’s life sucks, he bumps into a professor who threatens to fail him unless he writes a brilliant paper on fusion scientist Otto Octavius RIGHT NOW. Even It’s a Wonderful Life didn’t lay it on this thick!
Oh, and to top it all off, it’s apparently Peter’s birthday, and he’s been so busy that he forgot about it. I hate this trope. Has ANYONE forgotten their own birthday? Ever? Nice to see we’re starting the clichés early. And I really don’t see the purpose of this birthday scene to be honest. Nothing important happens at the party, he doesn’t get any significant presents, and it is never mentioned again. Frankly, I think it was just an excuse to get Harry and MJ into the movie before the ten-minute mark. We do learn that Harry has taken over his father’s company, Oscorp, that he still blames his dad’s death on Spider-Man, and that by a convenient coincidence, the aforementioned Dr. Octavius just happens to work for him. Harry promises to introduce Peter to him and then whoops, party’s over. Or should we just call it a poorly conceived plot point?
After the party, hey look! Another scene of Peter and MJ talking about
careers in their backyards as Peter takes out the trash, only for MJ to leave
after her boyfriend enters the conversation.
Did I put the wrong movie into the DVD player? We saw all this in the first one! Do something new! The only thing different here is that MJ now is
an actress instead of just wishing she was, and fickle flaky Peter
promises to come see her new play. But
Mary Jane has heard that tune many, many times before.
Oh.
Gee. I wonder what is going to
happen. I hope Peter does not disappoint
the love of his life yet again. Would
that not be a horrible and unexpected turn of events?
 |
| "Don't disappoint me." |
The next day, Harry introduces Peter to Octavius,
who does nothing but spout lines about how much nobler than Nobel-hungry Harry he
is. “It’s not about the prizes,” “You
use [intelligence] for the good of mankind,” etc., etc. Oh, yeah, and we also meet Otto’s wife Rosie,
who is so insignificant that I seem to recall her biggest scene being cut when
they aired this movie on television. Which
only makes her eventual fridging that much more obvious.
Anyway, Peter gets ready to go to the theater
to see MJ’s play, only to run across a couple of robbers aaaand you can guess
the rest.
Now I know that paragraph seemed really short. That’s because it was. But it’s only short because I’m glossing over
a couple of really pointless scenes, like Peter washing his clothes (seriously,
there’s a CLOTHES WASHING SCENE) and riding an elevator in his Spidey costume. They contribute absolutely nothing to our
main storylines and slow the pace of the movie to a rush hour traffic jam. Uh, there was a thing about nuclear
fusion and a school assignment in this movie, remember? Anybody?
…Yeah, I know that sounds really stupid and
implausible. And it is. But we do have to give them some
credit for doing their research, even if the final product is so dumb that I
could write a paper about everything wrong with it—and, in fact, did so during
my freshman year. Because I’m a
show-off, here are some excerpts:
…Tritium really is used in fusion reactions, and it is so rare that most of the tritium we have has not been found, but manufactured….
The fusion device itself, though a bit on the small side, is also (loosely) based on real science. A similarly shaped but much more elaborate device was built in the 1970s. The device, called Shiva, had twenty lasers to heat the pellet of fuel, held in the center by a needle-like instrument. In theory, the lasers should have heated the pellet to the point where its atoms were moving so quickly that they started smashing together—in other words, fusing….
The
main problem was the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability. No matter how smooth the
pellet of fuel is, there will very likely always be microscopic imperfections
in its surface. As the pressure of the
lasers hits this imperfect pellet, the imperfections grow exponentially. Before long, the entire pellet has been
distorted and squirts out between the lasers, making it useless for fusion….
Nuclear
fusion is known to be a highly explosive, energetic reaction. It may very well end up looking like a
bright, tiny star, though it would not be a star as it was shown to be in the movie [because] they use
different kinds of hydrogen. The Sun
uses regular hydrogen; fusion devices use tritium and deuterium, which fuse at
a lower temperature than regular hydrogen does.
In fact, deuterium fusion sometimes occurs in the cores of certain brown
dwarves, or “failed stars.” So if Doc
Ock was going to end up with any kind of astronomical body in his lab, it would
probably be a much less intriguing brown dwarf.
So yeah, it’s bad science, but it’s bad
science based on fact, and I do admire the screenwriters for blending fact with
fiction instead of just making up random stuff.
To help him in his experiments, Octavius uses
these things.
Using these arms, Dr. Octavius tries to start up his fusion device. As you might have guessed, playing with fusion is hardly the smartest thing in the world and the mini-Sun causes the room to explode, killing Rosie in a predictably cheesy slo-mo shot (though she sustains no visible injury, so what did she die of?). Maybe a separate observation room or deck might have been helpful, genius. Why didn’t Osborn or Octavius think of this? Heck, when they were testing the glider thing in the first movie, everyone was hiding in a bunker. Why wouldn’t you show the same degree of caution when you’re building a star???
Oh, right, we had to kill the pointless wife. Silly me.
Also during the accident, Octavius’s arms
become fused to his spine and take control of his brain, turning him into
Doctor Octopus. At the Daily Bugle, Jameson
lampshades the silliness of a guy named Otto Octavius suddenly having eight
limbs. <3 you lots, Johnny.
But while we’re on the subject, how did the
arms get evil anyway? Why? Obviously it was to create a villain, but if
Otto built the arms with noble intentions to perform a noble cause, shouldn’t
they have SOME decency in them? Unless,
of course, we want to psychoanalyze Octavius.
At the beginning of the film, he clearly isn’t happy with being
dependent on Oscorp for funding and he doesn’t seem to like Harry at all. Maybe his subconscious anger and frustration
found its way into the arms’ consciousness and flooded his brain when the arms
took over. But these elements are hinted
at without any elaboration, and you’d think that if this really is the case,
the arms would prompt Octavius to destroy Oscorp, which he never does. I’m inclined to believe a) this got written
out during a rewrite, or b) I’m giving this movie waaaay too much credit.
Meanwhile, a delirious Doctor Octopus decides
(with a little prodding from his arms) to continue his fusion experiments by
stealing the money to finance them. Peter
and Aunt May just happen to be at the bank when Doc Ock strikes, which leads to
what I have to admit is a pretty badass action sequence. It’s MUCH more original than that stupid
Unity Day scene from the first film, and even Aunt May gets her moment of
heroism by smacking Ock with her umbrella and saving Spider-Man towards the end
of the scene. But as awesome as this
sequence is, Dr. Octavius still gets away with the loot, and Peter has to get
changed for a party that he’ll be taking pictures of for the Bugle.
Turns out the party is in honor of Jameson’s astronaut son John, who—get this—just happens to be the guy MJ is dating.
Yeah, remember him? I didn’t mention that scene, but he shows up
for about five seconds right after MJ’s play and is obviously only there to
create more tension between MJ and Peter.
This is essentially the same function Flash Thompson served in the first
film. Again, if they weren’t going to
give us anything new, why even bother to make this movie? And this time it’s worse, because at least
Flash had a personality, if only that of a stereotypical bully. What do we know about Johnny here? Why are we having a party for him and not any
of the other astronauts he served with?
Is he special somehow? Why is
Mary Jane in love with him? What’s his
favorite ice cream flavor? Heck, I don’t
think he’s even had a line yet. You
could replace with a broom handle and nobody would notice the difference.
It’d have to be a pretty beefcakey broom handle, but whatever.
Peter goes to say hi to Mary Jane. MJ chews him out for being a lousy friend,
and Harry (who was there to drown his sorrows in alcohol and Spidey-related
emoness) chews him out for protecting Spider-Man. And then MJ… accepts a marriage proposal from
John?!! How long have they known
each other again? And why should I care? I still don’t know anything about this clown! I’m not even going to call him John
anymore. I hereby dub thee Mr. Plot
Device.
Peter finally gets fed up with the whole
Spidey vs. family life struggle and throws his costume in the dumpster. The moment he does, his life seems to get
instantly better. His grades go up, his
confidence increases, and he even makes up with MJ by going to see her play. At least until he tries to ask her on a date,
at which point she tells him he’s too late and rides off in a cab.
I have no idea what that means, but it’s the
first good idea you’ve had all day. MJ,
punch him.
 |
| "Punch me, I bleed!" |
On his way home, Peter sees a guy getting
beat up and mugged… AND DOES NOTHING.
Okay, you don’t want to be Spidey?
Fine! But at least call the cops,
you stupid twat!
This is followed by a moving scene of Peter
telling Aunt May it’s his fault Uncle Ben died.
Or it would be moving, if I wasn’t still visualizing that college kid
getting the you-know-what kicked out of him.
To say nothing of the fact that Aunt May leaves the room without a word
after her nephew’s confession! This is
the same problem I had with the Peter-stopping-the-robber scenario in the first
movie—nobody but Peter knows about his powers.
Everyone else thinks he’s a wimpy, nerdy TEENAGER—lemme say that again,
TEENAGER—who is habitually beat up at school.
Admittedly, it’s later implied that Aunt May has figured out about
Peter’s double-life, but we don’t know when she figured this out or if she
knows when he got his powers. For all
she knows, he didn’t get them until after Ben’s death. So why in the nine rings of hell does
everyone expect him to stop an armed and dangerous burglar by himself?! I get why Peter would feel guilty, but
why would Aunt May blame him for even two seconds?
Cut to Doc Ock setting up his new lab only to
realize he needs some tritium. He
threatens Harry to get it, and Harry promises to deliver the tritium if Ock
brings Spider-Man to him. At the least,
Harry shows more brains than his dad by telling Ock not to go to the Bugle for
information on Spider-Man but to Peter Parker, the kid who takes pictures of
Spidey.
And then…
Oh. Look. An apartment fire with Peter rushing to the rescue. Never seen that in a Spider-Man movie before. Only this time there’s no Osborn inside disguised as an old woman. We get something better this time around. Hold onto your hats, folks.
Now this is actually a legitimate question
that I wish had been raised in a better way.
There is no denying that Spider-Man takes up a lot of time and energy,
and that Peter had/would have to make a lot of personal sacrifices and risks to
protect his city and loved ones. How
much is enough? How much is too
much? And how do you deal with the guilt
if something terrible happens while you’re having some me-time? We all have a little trouble balancing
personal life and work life occasionally, but with Peter Parker, people can
(and have) died if he takes too much time for himself. While this film tries to be deep and answer
those questions, it never really does; Peter never finds that balance as far as
we can tell. With him, it’s either “I’m
Spider-Man” or “I’m not Spider-Man” and this conflict is shelved in favor of
scenes like the one where he eats cake with the landlord’s daughter.
To make things more complicated, Aunt May gets evicted. I’m gonna have to label this as another pointless plot device, since the scene of her moving her stuff out is just used as an opportunity for her and Peter to get together and chat about how wonderful and self-sacrificing Spider-Man is, and the way she says it clearly implies she knows that Peter is Spidey. May also thanks him for telling the truth about Ben, which doesn’t jive at all with her initial reaction, which is never mentioned again, but whatever.
Meanwhile, at… um… I’m assuming it’s John
Jameson’s apartment… does MJ live there too now? I’m confused.
Anyway, John finally gets a line… just in time for MJ to finally realize
that she doesn’t love him, even though she doesn’t say it. I’d feel bad for him, if I knew him better.
MJ then invites Peter for coffee, and just as
she’s about to confess her love, Peter has decided to go back to being
Spider-Man, which means that the same stupid reasons for his keeping himself
away from MJ are still in play, and he rejects her.
You ever see the end of Strangers on a
Train where the merry-go-round is spinning faster and faster and getting
crazier and crazier just won’t stop no matter how much you scream? That’s what this relationship is beginning to
feel like. Can we get off the bleeping carousel
and maybe try a roller coaster or something?
At least roller coasters eventually end.
And then Doc Ock decides he doesn’t like
being kept out of the plot for so long and, big surprise, kidnaps Mary Jane. He threatens to kill her unless Peter gets
Spider-Man to meet him at the clock tower that afternoon. This leads into another fight scene and, like
the first one, it’s really pretty good. Okay,
there’s one part where Otto uses civilians as projectile weapons that’s kinda funny,
but you know what? The rest of the scene
has put me in a good enough mood that I’ll give it a pass.
Eeeeexcept for that part. In yet another attempt to recreate whatever
magic they had in the first film, this fight scene also includes a “New Yorkers
band together” scene when Spidey’s mask comes off but everyone in the train car
just gives it back to him. And then when
Doc Ock comes back, they all try to stand between him and Spidey. I tried to be lenient on this bit the first
go round because it was a direct response to 9/11, but this is 2004. They should know better by now. Plus, did I mention this is 2004? You think not one person is gonna be taking
pictures on their phone and posting them on the internet? I don’t think so. Maybe Sam Raimi has that much faith in
America, but I sure as heck don’t.
 |
| "You wanna get to him, you gotta go through me." "And me." "Me, too." |
Long story short, Ock delivers Spidey to
Harry, who keeps his end of the bargain before unmasking the webhead on the
very same couch his own father died on. The
symbolism just oozes off the screen, doesn’t it?
Peter shakes Harry out of his shock long
enough to get the location of Octavius’s new lab. How Harry knew where it was, I’m not sure
(did Ock tell him? I don’t remember),
but Spidey gets to the lab too late to stop Ock from starting up the fusion
device. The third and final action
sequence ensues. It’s probably the worst
of the three, if only because some of the poses Spidey assumes jerk me out of
the story and remind me this is nothing more than a mediocre superhero flick.
This just screams “I’m a wooden actor in a silly costume!”
After the fight, Doc Ock seems to come to his
senses, but the moment Spidey reveals his true identity for whatever reason, he
goes cuckoo again… just long enough to allow Spider-Man to knock him back to
normal. Again. Well that was pointless. Octavius then tells him that the only way to
stop the device now is to drown it in the river, which the good doctor sacrifices
himself to do. And that’s my cue to pull
out the freshman essay again:
As for stopping [a nuclear] reaction,
throwing it into the river is hardly necessary.
Nuclear fusion is so difficult to achieve, let alone maintain, that all
Dr. Octopus would have had to do is poke at it with one of his tentacles to get
the reaction to stop—not quite the tragic, heroic ending he had in the movie.
Hate to ruin a good moment but… ah, who am I
kidding? Ruining good moments is what
I’m all about.
While Doc Ock is, y’know, dying, MJ
finally notices that Spider-Man’s mask is off and stands there goggle-eyed so
that Peter has to save her from the falling building.
That’s right, you keep on staring at each
other! It’s not like the building is
collapsing around your ears at this very moment! You go right on and have your sappy romantic
moment, you crazy lovebirds, you.
 |
| "You do love me!" |
As you may have noticed, Peter and MJ are not
at all disturbed by what just happened, and instead of sobbing in relief or
getting to the proper authorities, they decide to talk about their relationship
instead. Which, really, should have gone
something like this:
“We can never be together.”
“But we love each other.”“My being Spider-Man would put you at too much risk if we dated.”
“I’ve been kidnapped like five times already.”
“I will always be Spider-Man.”
“What different does that make?
“We can’t be together.”
“Oh, screw you. I’m getting back together with Harry.”
Speaking of Harry, Peter apparently never
bothered to sit down and have a talk with him about the whole you-think-I-killed-your-father
thing. Look, I know Peter promised Norman that he would keep Harry from finding out that his dad was Gobby, but if he was really a
friend to Harry, he’d see how much pain the poor guy was in and try to do something
about it. He could try to apologize. He could make up a bogus story about how it
was an accident, how his father was collateral damage in the fight against
Gobby. If he really thought that Harry’s
wellbeing would improve if he knew the truth, then screw the promise and tell
him! It’s not like Norman ever really
had his son’s best interests at heart at any point ever, so use your own
judgment! At least pretend like you care
and put some effort into THE ONLY FRIENDSHIP YOU’VE EVER HAD.
But no, this is the guy who wouldn’t even
call 911 when he saw a guy getting mugged in a dark alley, so instead, Harry
starts hallucinating a visit from his dead dad for… some… reason…
What was in that drink?
The hallucination tells him to quit being a
sissy-boy and kill Peter. Harry also
discovers his dad’s Goblin-Cave, but we won’t care about that until Spider-Man
3 and maybe not even then. For now,
let’s cut to the wedding of MJ and John.
Which is rather abruptly cancelled when Mary Jane leaves John at the
altar. And tells him this via a note.
Dang.
MJ doesn’t have no personality; she has a horrible
personality. She’s known for ages that
she doesn’t really love the poor guy, but she strings him along for half the
movie, agreeing to MARRY HIM even though she had doubts, and then not only does
she break up with him on their wedding day, she doesn’t even have the integrity
to do it in person! Apparently I was
wrong. She and Peter are freaking made
for each other.
Is this supposed to be romantic? Am I supposed to be happy about this? Because I’m not. Our two leads are shallow, selfish idiots. But the movie ends with Spidey swinging
heroically through the streets of New York, so I guess I’m supposed to be
rooting for him. Whatever you say,
movie. And they don’t even have the
decency to play the original version of the sixties theme song at the end like
they did last time. No, we get the Michael
Bublé edition this time around. Bad
enough I had to listen to him butcher Christmas songs all through December, now
he has to show up in my superhero movies too?
Somehow, despite all my whining and moaning
and griping, I kinda like this one better than the first one. I
really don’t know why. It’s
just as bad as the first one… no, scratch that, it’s worse than the
first one, if only because they blatantly rip off so much from the original
film—the opening, the villain who is a victim of failed science experiments, the
love triangle, the apartment fire, the unbelievably stupid/heroic civilians,
Peter testing his powers on rooftops in plain sight even though he’s not sure
they’ll work… in a lot of ways, this feels like nothing more than an extensive
rewrite of the first movie. So why can I
tolerate this one more easily than the first?
Are the special effects better? The octopus arms are pretty
impressive, though the special effects as a whole still look a little too video
gamey for my tastes. Maybe they’ve
gotten a little better. In spots. And like I said, the action scenes have
definitely improved. I actually enjoyed
them!
Are the characters any better? Heck no.
In fact, there are way too many of them: Rosie, Peter’s landlord, the
landlord’s daughter, John Jameson, Peter’s doctor… heck, even Uncle Ben, who
played such a pivotal role in the first film, is reduced to a shoehorned cameo
during a thirty second dream sequence.
What any of them are doing in this movie is a mystery to me. I guess Harry’s a little more sympathetic
this time around, although he is in serious need of some grief counseling if
he’s still behaving this way over a year after his dad died. And I’m really not sure how Mary Jane can
still be friends with him after he supported his dad calling her a whore in the
last movie, but why nitpick when there are still so many major points to be
addressed?
Is the acting any better? This one’s sort of a mixed bag, actually. Tobey Maguire is still pretty wooden and
unconvincing, and Kirsten Dunst reads half her lines like she’s drunk or bored. The only actor I consistently like is J.K.
Simmons, who plays Jameson with exactly the right mix of brutality and honesty (though
even he pushes my limits at the end by caring more about canceling the wedding
caterer than the fact that his son is standing right in front of him with a
newly broken heart).
Is the story any better? That depends which one you’re talking
about. There’s so many that it’s hard to
tell. In fact, I actually skipped over
this half-baked subplot where Peter’s Spider powers, which apparently are
directly linked to his love for MJ, go on the fritz. You didn’t even notice that, did you? That is how insignificant it was. The subplot about Peter and Mary Jane is
about as riveting as it was last time (i.e. not at all). The bits focusing on Otto/Doc Ock were
probably strongest, though seeing him actively struggle to regain control
throughout the movie could have made for a more compelling performance. It doesn’t help that the screenplay was
partially written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who are also responsible
for the overly long-lasting series Smallville. In case you couldn’t tell from the overdone
dialogue and the angsty hero who never seems to learn his lesson.
And that, really, is the overarching problem
with Spider-Man 2. There’s too
much going on and not enough of it has to do with the main story. Maybe with another rewrite, we would have
seen the elimination of Peter’s power problems and more of an emphasis on Octavius’s
own struggles. That wouldn’t have made
the characters any less sappy, given who’s writing, but it would have made for
a stronger film.
And, just like before, it seems like Raimi
had trouble deciding whether to make a totally serious movie or a slightly
goofy one. Just try and tell me you
didn’t laugh at Octavius’s big NOOOO when he wakes up in the hospital after his arms murdered a bunch of doctors, and the
mechanical arms scream with him…
…or all those scenes where random women
shriek directly into the camera for no reason.
And yet, aside from some silly facial expressions, I was genuinely moved at the end when Octavius was determined to “not die a monster.” I would have liked to see more of that inner turmoil throughout the film. So why do I tolerate Spider-Man 2 better than the original? I still have no idea. Maybe the action scenes pushed me over the edge. Maybe I just have fond memories of the class for which I smashed the science to smithereens. Maybe it’s because I like Doctor Octopus better than I liked Green Goblin. But whatever the reason, I kinda-sorta don’t mind watching Spider-Man 2, and I’ll probably watch it again sometime down the line.
Next Time: Featuring gratuitous references
to shows you have never heard of, one-shot characters you will never see again,
and Weena Mercatur as The Hopping Woman.
Images from Spider-Man 2
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