Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Release Date: June 30, 2004

Spider-Man was the first of the films I’ve looked at for this to have been eagerly anticipated prior to release. When the first film proved to be a success, expectations were even higher for the second film. In this regard, it’s a good thing that the film turned out so well.

Two years have passed since the events of the first film, and to put it bluntly, things aren’t going well for Peter Parker. Being Spider-Man is putting pressure on his relationships with his friends, his grades are slipping, he’s behind on the rent and Aunt May’s house is being repossessed by the bank. Harry Osborne hates Spider-Man and blames him for the death of his father, which strains his relationship with Peter, who takes pictures of Spider-Man for a living. However, they’re still close enough pals for Harry to let Peter accompany him to an Oscorp financed experiment performed by Peter’s hero, Doctor Otto Octavius. Mary Jane on the other hand, has finally had enough of Peter’s unreliability when he doesn’t come to see her in a play she’s performing in, and gives up on him, instead dating the astronaut John Jameson. Peter wanted to go to the play, but stopping on the way to do Spider-Man things resulted in him arriving late to the theatre, and the usher not letting him in. That’s right, out of all the crooks, criminals and supervillains in New York, Spider-Man is defeated by an usher. He should put that on a business card.

Octavius’ experiment goes disastrously wrong when the machine he’s working on overloads, and the building in which the experiment is being performed starts being destroyed, with Octavius’ wife being killed when the windows break. Spider-Man is able to stop the machine, but Octavius is electrocuted in the process, bonding the harness of four robotic arms he was wearing at the time to his spine, and destroying his mind, making him into the sociopathic Dr Octopus. Doc Ock hides in an abandoned warehouse in the docks where he resolves to redo his experiment bigger and better. Unfortunately, making the experiment bigger and better runs the risk of destroying New York, but who cares? Ock doesn’t, because he’s got a more immediate concern. 

Doc Ock robs a bank to fund his experiment. Spider-Man challenges him to a money fight, but Ock doesn’t want to play and leaves with several bags of cash. A disappointed Peter visits the planetarium to take pictures for the Daily Bugle, but it’s a very bad night for him, as Mary Jane gives him an earful, he is attacked by a drunk Harry and John announces that he and Mary Jane are getting married. The stress Peter is feeling from his recent failures causes him to lose his powers, which proves to be the last straw. He is Spider-Man no more.

Without the pressures of being Spider-Man, Peter is much happier. His grades improve, he can concentrate on his work again, and he is able to patch things up with Mary Jane, though she refuses to dump John and get back together with Peter, since there’s a little thing called an engagement getting in the way of that. However, Peter doesn’t feel quite right about not helping people, and eventually he breaks his new promise to rescue a child from a burning building. With some words of encouragement from Aunt May, who may or may not know that Peter is Spider-Man, Peter decides to come out of retirement. Meanwhile, the next thing to tick off Doc Ock’s shopping list is tritium, which he gets the same way he did last time – asking Harry Osborne for it. Harry agrees to provide the tritium on the condition that Ock brings him Spider-Man alive. Ock goes after Peter and kidnaps Mary Jane, with the determination to rescue her restoring Peter’s spider powers. The two battle on a train, but the cunning villain plays dirty by attacking the train’s mechanisms, watching Spider-Man exhaust himself stopping the runaway train, then coming back to finish him off when he’s in no shape to fight back.

Doc Ock hands Spider-Man over to Harry and gets his promised tritium, before leaving to perform his experiment. Harry decides to unmask Spider-Man before killing him, and is horrified to find that it’s Peter Parker under the mask. Peter is able to persuade Harry to let him go by telling Harry that Mary Jane is in danger and that he needs to go to Doc Ock’s lair to rescue her. After another battle, Peter knocks some sense back into Doc Ock and convinces him to stop his experiment as it is going haywire and threatening to destroy New York. Octavius tells Peter that the only way to stop the experiment at this point is to drag it underwater, and sacrifices himself in order to do that. Mary Jane ditches poor John at the altar in order to be with Peter, leaving John to cry himself to sleep and maybe become a werewolf or something. Meanwhile, Harry finds his father’s stockpile of Green Goblin weaponry, setting things up nicely for the next film…

A surprising thing about the film is how funny it is. There is quite a bit of humour, mainly from JJJ, though there are other funny scenes too, such as Doc Ock ruining a lovely moment where the train passengers defend Spidey by pushing them aside, and the awkward scene in which Spider-Man takes the lift.

Then came the fart...

You may recall from the entry for the first Spider-Man film that I was torn on Green Goblin as an antagonist. Specifically, I liked the Norman Osborne half, but was less pleased with the Green Goblin half. Dr Octopus is a big improvement in that regard. By making him into Peter’s idol, the film gives him a personal connection to Peter like Norman Osborne had, which is something Octavius did not have when he was first introduced in the comics. The Dr Octopus half of the character is a physically imposing foe with a visually appealing design, whose traits pose more of a threat to Spidey. Thanks to the tentacles, Ock is also better able to keep up with Spidey than the Green Goblin was, since the tentacles can be used to climb around, which the Goblin couldn’t do, leaving him depending on his glider to move around. Having four big metal arms sticking out of your back is also a valuable asset in battle when aiming to lay the pain on an opponent. His design for the film is also a better fit than the Green Goblin’s was, with the tentacles being particularly impressive looking.

 Doc Ock in the film...

 And the comic appearance for comparison's sake.

The supporting cast is still as good as ever. Aunt May provides the emotional core of the film in how she copes with living alone since Uncle Ben died last time, and Peter has since moved out. Some of her scenes are actually quite upsetting to watch, particularly the one where she snaps at Peter to accept money from her, even though she needs the money as badly as Peter does. On a lighter note, J Jonah Jameson gets a lot more screen time in this film than he did in the first one, and he still steals every scene he’s in. A scene of him laughing from this film even went viral. His son John is also the most pleasant romantic rival in any film ever, acting like a smug prick to Peter a grand total of zero times. In fact, he may have been a little too nice, because I felt bad for him when Mary Jane left him on the altar. He didn’t deserve that, poor guy.

The action scenes have also improved this time, because Doc Ock is almost as agile as Spidey, which allows him to keep up. The tentacles allow him to climb about the rooftops like Spider-Man, which opens up the battleground instead of limiting it to somewhere that the Green Goblin can stand vertically upright. The train sequence in particular deserves praise, as it is thrilling to watch, thanks to Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus being able to fight on the roof and along the walls and every which way.

Spider-Man 2 is like Spider-Man 1, but bigger and better. The stakes are higher, the conflict is more personal for both Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and the villain is stronger. This improves on the original in every way.

Next Time: Can the Daywalker go three for three?

Bonus: Doctor Octopus was originally intended to appear in the first film alongside the Green Goblin, but it was decided that he should be held back for the sequel, because having to stuff in three origin stories would draw attention away from the main conflict. Good call film. You get the...

Stan Lee Spotter: Stan Lee appears as a man who drags someone out of the way of some falling rubble during one of Spider-Man and Doc Ock’s fights. Originally, he was going to play the man who says "Spider-Man stole that guy's pizza!" The Usher who defeated Spider-Man is played by frequent Sam Raimi collaborator and B-Movie icon, Bruce Campbell, who also narrated the tie-in game.