He swings from building to building! He climbs up walls! He ties up unshaven crooks with webbing! He stubbornly crawls out of the plughole even after you’ve washed him away! We all know and love Spider-Man, and I’m sure you enjoyed the 2002 movie as much as I did. A great director – Sam Raimi – brings Spider-Man to life as a web-slinging hero amongst the skyscrapers. Tobey McGuire is a dorky Peter Parker. Kirsten Dunst gets trapped in light rain. The second installment promises more of that, but with greater peril, bigger setpieces, high drama and the imposing threat of a certain Dr Octopus. It certainly sounds good. Let’s take a look, shall we?

We take our seats...

Oh yes, this is good. The minor flaws of the first film have been fixed for this sequel, not least when it comes to the hero. Spider-Man looks much more realistic when he’s in action, which betrays a substantial increase in the effects budget. And Dr Octopus, the man with huge mechanical killer tentacles, is a much more impressive villian than that lame Goblin they had last time. Doc Ock is an ungodly mix of computer effects, metal tentacles and Alfred Molina, and is as awesome as he sounds. You won’t believe the sequence where Spidey and Octopus fight their way up a skyscraper! Spider-Man 2 has the best, most exciting action of any film this year, but that’s only to be expected from the director of Evil Dead II.

We fidget and attempt to open bags of popcorn...

Perhaps the reason the action works so well is that it’s restricted to only a few big scenes. Spider-Man 2 spends a great deal of its running time exploring the soap opera drama that unfolds between Peter Parker and his friends, and the dilemma that forces Peter to stop being his alter-ego Spider-Man. This makes it very involving, and the film explores the difficulty of being a man in a silly costume with wit and depth. The script is punchy and unusually good, and offers up plenty of unexpected twists. It makes a superb joke out of Spidey losing his powers.

I send popcorn spraying across the cinema...

That said, it is best not to get too swept up by the hype (‘best superhero film ever’ and all those plaudits). It’s not perfect. For one thing, Peter Parker’s beloved Aunt May, thankfully hospitalised a lot in the first Spider-Man, here dominates plenty of frames, even somehow wandering into a Spider-Man / Dr Octopus fight! After only 10 minutes in, you begin to hope that Spidey will mistake his aunt for a fly and eat her. Still, this may not bother you as much as it bothers me.

The End...

Spider-Man 2 is an impressive superhero film which delivers quality entertainment. It has enough original touches to make it a cut above the rest, and succeeds in giving a shot in the arm to the usual computer-graphics-tomfoolery-flicks genre by using cgi tools properly. The young ones will love it. The older ones will like it. And anyone inbetween will be looking out for the Bruce Campbell cameo. Yes, Spider-Man 2 is fun!

We see a web being spun on the cinema screen. Is it the work of Spider-Man? No, it is just that the cinema is dirty. We vow to go to a different one when Spider Man 3 comes out.

Jason Theodorou, July 2004