The Critics Speak

Spiderman 2

Critic: Steph Lewis
On a scale of 0 to Awesome, I rate this: Fun
Released: June 30, 2004
Director: Sam Raimi
MPAA RATING: PG-13, for stylized action violence

I wasn't planning on seeing this one, but I saw Neal's review of it and thought, "Wow. It must be really good!"

This is the best Marvel Comics remake next to X-Men. If I judged movies based on cool characters and special effects, this one would be awesome. Doc Oc is the sweetest villan I've seen. That dude scales walls and grabs stuff and is really quite freaky! And of course, Tobey McGuire is the most adorable thing to put on a skin-tight costume.

The movie is set up regular comic book style. Peter Parker (McGuire) wants to be with his girl M.J. (Kirsten Dunst), but is suffering from his "curse" of being Spiderman. He wants to be with her, he wants to do well in school...but he can't manage those two things and all of the Spiderman stuff! His late-night crime fighting leaves him tired and listless, disorganized, and broke.

I'm so glad they cast McGuire as Spiderman. He pulls off this dorky, yet strangely sexy, guy quite well! My favorite part about him is that he is real. He's not this, "Look at how awesome I am!" kind of superhero. He sees that having superpowers has super-drawbacks. And, he presents the real side of his character with subtlety and sensitivity.

Most of the other actors (Kirsten Dunst & James Franco especially) just don't have the same depth of character as McGuire, which weakens the movie. If a movie is only as good as it's weakest actor, than I rate this movie a Kirsten Dunst.

But, seriously, that Doc Oc is so cool!