A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Spiderman 2

Date Viewed: 7/26/04

Details:

Tobey Maguire

Kirsten Dunst

James Franco

Alfred Molina

Director: Sam Raimi

Score: +

The Review: We better tolerate our doses of heroism when they come through the agency of fictional super-heroes.

Enormously better than the first Spiderman, this is no longer an adolescent plot wrought overlong by special effects. Finally there is some decent characterization and the mature themes of choice and consequence -- include destiny and fate if you will, but choice is more than enough to make this movie work. And when you get to the final four words of dialog, you'll recognize why they're the stuff of male fantasy, adolescent or adult.

This has many echoes of Michael Keaton's Batman, and not just because Danny Elfman is writing the score. I think that particular Batman was the first film rendering of the angst-ridden and conflicted "dark angel," no longer an impervious, always-perfect, super-hero. And the ambiguous mood was epitomized by Keaton's justification: "I do it because I can." The Peter Parker (a.k.a. Spiderman) revealed here shares many of these concerns & themes, and is all the better for it. One only hopes that when Harry Potter is this age, he too has such an interesting crisis of conscience and motivation. While it doesn't hurt to have Kirsten Dunst floating around, looking alternately girl-next-door tousled and billboard stunning, it's the beginnings of character complexity that makes this summer flick click.

But the way, if you're going to try to sound smart, get your mathematics and physics right: eigenvalues are dimensionless, and there's one hell of a lot more than 25 pounds of tritium in all the world's oceans. Quibbles aside, the super-villain is not as far off the wall as these entertainments normally portray such individuals. Dr Otto Octavius (Molina) actually comes across as an intelligent, not-at-all mad, scientist engaged in an interesting project; with a literal deus ex machina to explain Doc Ock's personality changes, the disconnect is not as jarring as it was with Dafoe's Green Goblin.

(31-July-04)

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