Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) gives up his crime-fighting identity of Spider-Man in a desperate attempt to return to ordinary life and keep the love of MJ (Kirsten Dunst). But a ruthless, terrifying new villain, the multi-tentacled Doc Ock, forces Peter to swing back into action to save everything he holds dear.
More than a few critics hailed Spider-Man 2 as "the best superhero movie ever," and there's no compelling reason to argue--thanks to a bigger budget, better special effects, and a dynamic, character-driven plot, it's a notch above Spider-Man in terms of emotional depth and rich comic-book sensibility. Ordinary People Oscar-winner Alvin Sargent received screenplay credit, and celebrated author and comic-book expert Michael Chabon worked on the story, but it's director Sam Raimi's affinity for the material that brings Spidey 2 to vivid life. When a fusion experiment goes terribly wrong, a brilliant physicist (Alfred Molina) is turned into Spidey's newest nemesis, the deranged, mechanically tentacled "Doctor Octopus," obsessed with completing his experiment and killing Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) in the process. Even more compelling is Peter Parker's urgent dilemma: continue his burdensome, lonely life of crime-fighting as Spider-Man, or pursue love and happiness with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst)? Molina's outstanding as a tragic villain controlled by his own invention, and the action sequences are nothing less than breathtaking, but the real success of Spider-Man 2 is its sense of priorities. With all of Hollywood's biggest and best toys at his disposal, Raimi and his writers stay true to the Marvel mythology, honoring Spider-Man creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and setting the bar impressively high for the challenge of Spider-Man 3. --Jeff Shannon


DVD Features:

The first commentary track is by director Sam Raimi and a self-deprecating Tobey Maguire speaking in tandem, and producer (and Marvel CEO) Avi Arad and coproducer Grant Curtis speaking in tandem. They discuss a number of topics, including Raimi's memory of his excitement over Richard Donner's Superman and how the character of Black Cat had to be dropped from the film. The second commentary is by six members of the Oscar-nominated effects team, and one of their primary focuses is how Doc Ock's arms were achieved by a combination of puppetry and CGI.

The centerpiece of the second disc is a massive two-hour documentary that can be viewed all at once or in 12 separate pieces. It covers the development of the story, the visual effects, costumes, stunts, and sound and music. Three shorter featurettes cover Peter Parker's struggle between his personal and hero lives, Doc Ock, and the women in Spider-Man's life, and what's interesting is how they discuss those topics not just in relation to the movies but to the comic books as well. (For example, Betty Brant and Gwen Stacy had a much greater impact in the comics.) There's a scene in which you can toggle among three different camera angles, and a gallery of 17 paintings Alex Ross created for the opening sequence. The sound and picture are spectacular, though only the Superbit edition has DTS. --David Horiuchi

More Spiderman on DVD

The Spiderman Toy Store	The First Film	Spider Man on the small screen
The Soundtrack	Game Boy Advance	The Book

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Stills from Spider-Man 2 (click for larger image)

Customer Rating:
Summary: Spiderman 2
Comment: I bought this used and it completed the set of Spiderman movies. My son loves it.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great movie!
Comment: My son loves this movie. He has watched it many times and doesn't seem to get tired of watching it.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fan of Spider-Man movies.
Comment: I'm a fan of Spider-Man movies. Have all three. I like the quality of the DVD and the different languages it can be seen in. I love fullscreen version since you get to see the whole screen and not only a fraction of it.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: BETTER THAN MOST OF ITS KIND
Comment: I liked the CGI work, and non-stop action, but was quite happy to see the characters in SPIDEY-2 become less cardboard-like than many of the super clowns ( and 'clones' ) coming to big ( and little ) screens everywhere these days. This movie had some heart, and a lot of that was due to another excellent performance by Alfred Molina. His 'Doc Ock' is a much more well-rounded, and conflicted villain than I've seen in a while, and while my personal preference in super-heroes tends to swing closer to HELLBOY, and 'V,' Tobey Maguire makes an exceptional Spider-man.

Most of the extra's in this version of the film, are not that great ( for the money ), and the 8 minutes of extra footage doesn't make the story any better.

Still, it's a very well-done movie.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: I gave the first one a 10 out of 10, this one is even better
Comment: It would be way too predictable for me to use an exaggeration here like, "since this is better than the first, and I gave the first one a 10 out of 10, then I'm giving part 2 a 15 out of 10!!" I won't quite say that. There's only one movie that deserves such an outrageous claim of actually scoring OUTSIDE the scale of numbers allotted for the rating, and that's Back to the Future part 1. Sorry, I got a off on a tangent, Spike Lee style. Back to Spider-Man 2.

This truly outdoes the first movie in terms of scale. And I guess that's how it works, you tell the origin story, after that you're free to explore different themes in that universe you've created. I don't like to use this word to describe a lot of things, but truly only one word describes this movie: epic.

There's a single driving force in this movie that instantly gets you worrying, and hoping for a good outcome: Peter Parker's tragic downfall, or to be more specific, him hitting ROCK BOTTOM with Mary Jane. He literally lost it all here at one point in this movie. I mean it doesn't get anymore serious than being told "Oh, I'm getting married.." As if that weren't enough, he couldn't even be in her life as a friend because of his constant disappointments he caused her because of his responsibilities as Spider-Man. Add to that his stressful friendship with Harry, his identity crisis, and you've got a pretty complex story, superhero action movie or not.

**You feel the full spectrum of emotions in this movie. Or at the very least, you feel the maximum emotion at one part of the spectrum, sympathy. I've said it already and I'll say it again, Peter Parker's crumbling relationship with Mary Jane was executed perfectly. There's two scenes that captures this feeling of desperation perfectly:

1) At that dinner party thing they were at, Peter gets hit with a 3 part combo: A) his friendship with Harry takes a further dive after being slapped by him twice, B) his friendship with Mary Jane takes a further dive after being told by her while they were outside on the balcony that she pretty much doesn't want anything to do with him anymore, in so many words, and finally, not too long after, C) gets hit with the ultimate crushing blow as he hears the announcement that Mary Jane officially agreed to marry her boyfriend. I think anyone can imagine how embarrassed, humiliated, and heartbroken Peter must've felt standing there, as his world slowed down to a dreamlike state, vaguely hearing J. Jonah Jameson shouting to him to snap a picture of none other than Mary Jane and her new fiancé.

2) After falling to the ground after his webs failed him again, he picks up that newspaper and sees how he's hated by the city and gets no appreciation, with the scene then cutting to him sitting on his bed, tossing that paper away in disgust. It's at this point that we're on the edge of our seats, just wondering what he's gonna do next. His life was a complete tragedy.

**Amazing, lengthy action sequences.

**A sympathetic villain, much better than Green Goblin.

**It takes a certain expert hand to be able to have lines spoken by one character (Aunt May), then have those very same lines repeated by another character (Peter) to another character (Doc Ock), which is what finally gets that other character to see the error of his ways, all without seeming forced or convenient. There's certain elements of the plot that do seem convenient, but it's never contrived or forced. It's like a complex tapestry that all fits together and makes sense somehow.

**If I had it my way, I'd change the ending. I think it would've struck a better emotional chord had they ended it with the scene of Mary Jane hugging her fiancé, after being dropped off by Spider-Man, as she sadly looks up to her love that would never be, as he then shoots out a web and flys off into the night. It would've been a great place to end, the music was PERFECT right at that instant she looked up into the sky at him, with that bright light illuminating her face. This angelic, melodic tone or music, whatever that was that played. Either end it there and move the scene with Harry and his father up BEFORE this scene (because you can't skip the Harry scene no matter how you end it), OR, end right after the Harry scene, after discovering all the Green Goblin equipment. Have that whole cancelled wedding and running scene be the START of part 3 (obviously it's too late for that). I guess the argument for keeping it the way it was shot is the fact that you then wouldn't have the shot of Mary Jane in Peter's window, looking out with a look that you can't quite tell if it's happiness or fear, in regards to her new life.

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