Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Spiderman 2
[Film] The web-slinging wall-crawler is back and he's got an identity crisis in Spiderman 2. This is a good movie; it starts well, it's well paced throughout and it ends well. Go & see it.
Quite a few of the cast & crew from the first Spiderman have returned. Sam Raimi is back in control with Tobey Maquire and Kirsten Dunst reprising their lead roles as Peter Parker and his love interest Mary Jane Watson. James Franco is back as Parker's best friend and Rosemary Harris is back as Parker's Aunt May, but the standout performance, for my money, goes to J.K. Simmons who returns as newspaperman J. Jonah Jameson (who also popped up on Law & Order last night). Funny.
As good as Simmons was, though, the movie certainly wouldn't have been as good if it weren't for Alfred Molina's performance as Doctor Octopus. Molina's Octopus begins as a rare character in such films - a balanced scientist, happily married - before an accident fuses AI-enabled arms to his body that begin to exert their influence, sending him down the road to madness. He's a much more believable bad guy than the Green Goblin, and you can't have a decent good guy without a believable bad guy. The surgery scene was surprisingly sinister and violent; despite the M classification there were still quite a few kids in the cinema and I doubt that session was unique in that respect.
Other highlights, for me, were the openning credits that featured a sequence of watercolours that provide a precis of the first Spiderman and the awkward conversation in the elevator. The violin-playing woman was a nice touch too.
Read or Post a Comment
<< Home