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| B+ B+ B+ | |
| Review by Xibo | Date seen: July 17, 2004 |
| Viewing Location: Upper East Side, NYC | Grade: B+ |
| Summary: Lots of fun when it finally gets going. | |
| The movie starts out with a dull and frustrating half-hour where we are treated to how much of a putz Peter Parker is. Can't hold down a job, can't get the girl, can't do his homework, can't make it to class on time, can't make it to the play on time, and on and on... all because he's constantly fighting crime as Spiderman. It's a miserable start to the movie, I mean, really depressing. Every five minutes he's running out of money, down to his last dollar, quarter, or whatever (but always has enough for the next scene).
But Alfred Molina enters the scene and WOW he is excellent as "Dr. Octopus". He really plays the bad guy well. The animations with his mechanical arms are simply astounding. Elfman does a great soundtrack (as always). The movie takes place in New York City, but this isn't any New York City I've ever seen. Spidey's flying down avenues filled with buildings that simply don't exist here. The MTA trains don't look right. And for heaven's sake, there hasn't been an elevated train in Manhattan in decades. And to have an elevated dead-end in the middle of air, right over water? That's just crazy! The fight scenes are very exciting, even if Maguire's facial expressions do get a bit ugly at times. (They should have left the mask on.) The J. Jonah Jameson character is hilarious to watch, they should have given him better lines. Anyway, there's lots in the movie to love, even if it wasn't quite as good as the first. | |
| A A A | |
| Review by Finrod | Date seen: July 16, 2004 |
| Viewing Location: theater | Grade: A |
| Summary: A worthy sequel | |
| Spiderman 2 does a great job of not falling into sequel-itis like many do. My main complaint about it was that some of the non-action plot exposition gets a bit slow in points, and may not stand up to repeated watching as well as it could have. But overall it did amazingly well, and pretty transparently set the stage for Spiderman 3. | |
"I should put quotes here."