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The Main Characters
--Peter Parker (Toby McGuire) is your typical high school geek. That is, until he is bitten by a radioactive spider and given spider-strength, the ability to spin webs and a spider-sense. He’s the amazing Spider-Man.
--Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) is the girl who lives next door to Peter. He has loved her since she moved next door but could never bring himself to say it. His feelings for her lead to her kidnapping at the hands of the Green Goblin.
--Otto Octavius/Dr. Octopus (Alfred Molina) is a great scientist who is working on a great project for Harry Osborn with his 4 metal tentacles he developed. The project goes awry and the tentacles are bonded to his body and start controlling him.
The Setting
Ahhh good ol NYC.
The Plot
When we last left Spider-Man, he had just come from the funeral of Norman Osborn, who was the father of his best friend Harry. Norman had been killed in a fight with Spider-Man and Norman told Peter not to tell Harry. Spider-Man brought Norman back to his mansion and Harry saw him lay the body there and blamed Spider-Man. Fast forward two years and Peter Parker is living on his own in an apartment trying to make ends meet, going to college and being Spider-Man. He is conflicted right away when his professor (Dr. Connors) tells him his work has been lacking and then has to deal with Mary-Jane, who still has feelings for him. He also has the problem of Harry, who wants Peter to tell him who Spider-Man is (since Peter takes photos of him). The stress of all these problems causes Peter to just lose it and his Spider powers actually start to fade.
He is determined to stop being Spider-Man when he realizes he may have lost Mary-Jane forever. She is getting married to John Jameson (JJJ’s astronaut son). Peter turns things around and starts doing better in school and actually goes to see Mary-Jane in her play! Yes, things are going well. He even gets Harry to introduce him to Otto Octavius, a extremely gifted scientist who works for Oscorp. Peter is talking to him about cold fusion, and he will write about it for his class with Dr. Connors. Otto has discovered a way to harness the power and thus rid the world of its power problems. To carefully use the hazardous material, Otto developed 4 metal tentacles that attach to his back that he can control. The big day comes and of course it goes wrong. Otto’s experiment fails, an explosion occurs, the metal arms are welded to Octavius’ body and the arms start controlling him. Otto goes crazy and wants to do his experiment over because he knows he can’t be wrong and goes to Harry to get more of the rare material. Harry tells him to bring him Spider-Man, and tells him that to get Spider-Man, he needs to get Peter Parker.
The newly christened Doctor Octopus goes off in search of Peter Parker and finds him talking to Mary-Jane. Peter and Mary-Jane seem to be on the verge of kissing when Doc Ock interrupts. Doc Ock takes Mary-Jane away and tells Parker to get Spider-Man or Mary-Jane will die. This proves a dilemma for Peter. He had given up being Spider-Man, thrown away the uniform, crime has risen, his powers are gone, yet Spider-Man is needed. He does some soul searching and finds the real reason his powers are gone are psychological. He regains his powers and he’s off to battle Octavius. He does get captured and taken to Harry. Will Spider-Man’s identity be revealed to Harry? Will Octopus win out? Don’t ask me, I’m not telling.
Movie Review
Man, what an incredible movie. Everything about this movie is almost perfect. I’m a huge comic book fan and I’ve been spoiled by the wealth of great Marvel movies being made lately, and I have to say, this is easily the best one. The plot is pretty incredible, the action sequences were spectacular and they have clearly gotten better with the CGI animation as it’s more fluid than the first one was. There seemed to be so much going on during this movie and it actually set up the third one very nicely. I love the Spider-Man franchise, but honestly, in my opinion, they should stop at three. That’s a different topic altogether, so let’s stick with this movie! The villain was a great choice. Doctor Octopus is one of Spidey’s first and greatest villains (in fact, it was the fifth villain he fought behind the burglar, Chameleon, Vulture and the Tinkerer). Alfred Molina did a great job as Doc Ock and I actually heard some people complain he was overweight for the role. I guess they never read the comics. Doc Ock was never the physical speciman that the Hulk was, he was an average scientist who had these tentacles binded to him. Molina did a great job of the rational Otto Octavius and transitioned smoothly into the manaical villain. Tobey and Kirsten were as good as they were in the first movie, if not slightly better, and JK Simmons is absolutely fantastic as J. Jonah Jameson. That’s the sign of a great movie, where the supporting cast is every bit as good as the featured players. I would be remiss in not mentioning the comics that this took the plot from. Spider-Man #50 (with that awesome Romita cover) was actually titles Spider-Man No More which Tobey actually says (I will be Spider-Man no more or something like that), and in the first annual, Spider-Man lost his powers due to lack of focus, like in this film. Also, astute readers will notice Dr. Connors and John Jameson being in the movie. They would both go on to be Spider-Man foes. Dr. Connors as the Lizard and John as the lame Werewolf. Overall, a great movie that improves upon the first movie and leaves lofty goals for the third movie to reach.
Overal Rating
***3/4
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