Spider-Man 2 (2004) (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Especially since Doc Ock isn't all lean and mean and muscular-like in the comics either. He was short and stocky in the comics, and Molina is pretty tall compared to Tobey.

I couldn't believe they explained away the "control" scenario of the arms in like 2 lines. I'm not sure I got all of it, but the gist was, if the glowing blue light goes dim, the arms controlled Doc Ock. That's crazy science for you.

The screaming woman in the office was hilarious, plus the quick cut to 2 curvy women with on the street looking up had Raimi's fingerprints all over those scenes.

 

[Robin Warren]

[The "I'm back! I'm back!" and "My back! My back!" Oh hee hee hee ha ha. It's funny because it rhymes!! Although I do have to give credit to the guy who had the idea for the car alarm thing at the end]

Oh come on, that was pretty funny. I laughed anyways. Also I think its a nod to the fact that Tobey almost backed out of filming due to his bad back.

 

[pitchman]

Amen! It's impressive how much Molina's Doc Ock resembles, in appearance and build, the original character as conceived by Ditko and Lee... right down to the gray smock/jacket thing he wore at the public demonstration.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I commented on my out that Alfred Molina's a brave man to go shirtless.

As for Hobgoblin, he was a criminal who found Green Goblin's equipment stash. .

 

[Matt Stone]

I certainly thought it was. I also loved the "Raindrops..." sequence. Raimi may have gone over the top, but I'm glad he had the balls to do it. It all really struck a chord with me and allowed the film to excel past other comic book adaptations.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

True, but I think he's better in Part 2. Plus he is supposed to be semi-looney, under the surface anyway.


-One silly gripe I had after seeing the movie:

Dr. Octopus is sent out to question Peter Parker. He needs information from the kid. He MUST find out where Spider-Man is.

So why would he throw a car at the kid???

 

[Patrick Sun]

Well, obviously Doc Ock didn't hear Harry say "Don't hurt Peter!"

Anyone else get the in-joke when Peter asked MJ if she was still in the Village (Kirsten pulled out of "The Village" to be in this film).

Also, how about the bit where lady in the street butchers the "Spider-Man" song not once, but twice!

 

[Tim Glover]

I agree. I think Patrick was just being funny. But I also think it would have been ridiculous for doc-oc to be all muscular, lean etc...like most of the HTF members are.

 

[Haggai]

Just got back from seeing it. I enjoyed it a lot, although the hype probably had my expectations higher than they should have been. The dialog didn't seem that much better than the first movie, which I had sort of expected from glancing at a few reviews.

Almost all the effects with Dr. Octopus were excellent. Whenever he isn't climing up a building, it looked very real to me, and when is climbing up or down, it still looks pretty cool. And that fight on the subway, wow! Fantastic action sequence.

Maguire really does a nice job in these movies. It's not easy to strike the balance he finds between the usually reserved nature of Peter Parker and the intensity of Spiderman. J.K. Simmons is just great as Jonah Jameson, that was an inspired bit of casting for this series. I also thought Molina was very good. But James Franco as Harry Osborn...hello? I think he's awful.

I have to gush about how much I'm in love with Kirsten Dunst's screen presence. It's just remarkable how great she can look in front of the camera. She doesn't look that striking in some of the earlier scenes, as a couple of people have mentioned, but as the movie goes on, damn. The look on her face when she realizes that Peter is Spidey was just about worth the price of admission on its own.

 

[Ray_Gootz]

Actully in the comic book Hobgoblin was fashion designer Rodreick Kingsley. The Orginal Hobgoblin storyline reads like a superhero usual suspects with Hobgoblin framing Flash Thompson (SPiderman's childhood bully) and Ned Leeds (a reporter for the daily bugle. The closest thing in the movie would be Ted Rami) for his crimes. In fact he had Ned assinated by the mob in the Hobgoblin costume then dissapered. He only came back when Jason Magendal a mercenary who was the super-villan Jack O lanter took up the Hobgoblin mantle and made a deal with the devil...becoming an actual demon. When his demon half was seperated (His deomon half becoming the demogoblin)he was sent to jail and killed by the orginal Hobgoblin who was then FINALLY captured by Spidey.

If they are doing the hobgoblin route I'd throw everyone a curb and NOT make it Harry. Instead make it an unknown criminal framing Harry and the entire hook of part 3 is The Hobgoblin Harry Osbourne or someone worse? And then when they do reveal who the hobgoblin is it should be a big suprise like in The Usual Suspects. You could even introduce a bunch of red herrings like Eddie Brock, Gwen Stacy, Felcia Hardy, Jean DeWolf, Robbie Robertson's son and Cletus Kassidy to keep the mystery up. Plus you get The black Cat, Venom and Carnage in the storyline for the sequels.

 

[TonyD]

i think it would have fit in well if he said that.

i dont remember anything about the blue light controlling the arms or keeping them under control.
it was the small chip at the top of ock's spine attached to the spine of the arms that allowed his higher brain funtions to continue, and control the arms.

and the hobgoblin was ned leeds, who was married to betty brant.
the green goblin stuff was found accidently by a street criminal and he sold them to leeds.
leeds was a reporter for the bugle and he was going to use the equipment to write a story about the underworld for the bugle.
but the power maDe Him mad and he couldnt control himself anymore.
there was one more character who became hobby. that was jason macendale who before that was "jack-o-lantern"
then he was turned into a real hobgoblen.

anyway i saw it today twice.
i watched an early show and it was starting right away in the next screen so i went in and watched it again.

i'll be seeing it again later with my wife.

i dont think there was much wrong at all with this movie.

great action and great backstory.

the reason i have been reading spider-man for almost 30 years is the great idea to make him flawed or just like one of us.

the same problems paying bills and getting a job, keeping a girlfriend that all regular people have.

 

[Daniel J.S.]

This is a combination of review and discussion of the themes I picked up on.

I wasn't thrilled with the first film; I felt that a very good origin story was undone by rather lifeless action scenes in the second half. So I wasn't going into this one with extremely high expectations. This sequel was definitely an improvement over the original, although it did not completely succeed in ameliorating the problems of the first movie.

In the original, Peter's powers provided a fine metaphor for the experience of puberty, the teenage years, and growing up. Hairs grew on his body where there were none before; his body "ejaculated" strange fluids (at first unexpectedly and involuntarily); he experienced a "growth spurt" when his physique changed. While this was going on, his sexual drive intensified with his crush on Mary Jane. The sequel perfectly continues this growing up metaphor by having Peter/Spider-Man experience the adult problems of sexual frustration and impotence. Peter's sexual drive is frustrated when Mary Jane takes up with another man, and Peter can't express his desire. He can't perform. At the same time, his powers are mysteriously failing: his webs don't function and his acrobatic abilities vanish periodically. The failure of the web is crucial. His inability to "climax" is indicative of sexual failure. Spider-Man's duty towards fighting crime has completely defined his identity to the point that his earthly desires have been supressed, leaving him impotent, unable to consumate with Mary Jane. Soon, his sexual failure is mapped onto the rest of his life: he fails at his job, at school, at financially supporting himself. His impotence reaches its apex when he abandons his identity as Spider-Man. He once again needs his glasses and his relationship with MJ further deteriorates. Once MJ is captured by Dr. Octopus, his passions are re-awakened. He realizes Spider-Man is part of who he is and his powers function perfectly again. Now that he can once again "perform," he gets the girl.

Dr. Octopus is an interesting character in that he raises issues about the cultural mind/body split as well as issues of carnival and the grotesque body.

In the introduction to Rabelais and His World, Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin defines carnival as folk (the "common" man) culture's celebration and revelry in opposition to "official" culture (that is "high" culture). As Bakhtin puts it, carnival

The parts of the body that can be extended, exagerrated to outlandish proportions (like a fat belly, protruding eyes, etc.) are grotesque. When Doc Ock fuses the mechanical arms to his body, they become part of a grotesque body: his arms are extended, "outgrowing its own self." Ock's transgression of "official" constructions of the body frames him as a freak, a danger. His difference will not be tolerated by official society, so he must be eliminated so that traditional order may prevail.

A common trope in Western society is the mind/body dichotomy. The mind, the ability to reason is priveleged while the body is Other because of its ability to provide pleasure. Think of all the outcry we always hear about nudity in both art and in public and you'll see what I mean. Also consider Descarte's aphorism "I think, therefore I am." When Octavius creates the arms that are controlled by his brain, we see the mind and body are framed as a dialectic. The mind is the thesis; the body, the antithesis. The inhibitor chip is set up as the dialectical synthesis. Is this possible? Alas, not. The body corrupts the mind. It is not till the end that Ock renounces his evil ways (that is rejects the body) and stops his experiment, giving up his own life. Mind triumphed over body, but he must be punished for attempting to reconcile the mind/body split with his life. The body must remain an abject, a part of the self that must be cast out, must be suppressed in the name of what society defines as "decency" (that is denial of the body and its capacity for experience and expression of pleasure).

All this is pitch-perfect. However, the Spider-Man sequences are still the weak link. The action scened are well-done this time around, but I still don't think Raimi has been able to generate genuine excitement with them. Also, I wish we saw more of the city being terrorized when Spider-Man calls it quits; we need to see how much he is needed. Recall Superman II: while Supes was with Lois, a town was terrorized, the army was trashed, the White House was attacked and the President knelt in surrender. There was a sense of dire peril that was lacking in this film. When Superman returned, there was a greater sense of joy because the world REALLY needed him. Here, we more or less only has newspaper headlines stating that he was needed (as well as Aunt May's fine speech about how the world needs and loves heroes). Correction, the scene on the train where Ock pushed aside the people trying to protect Spidey was an effective way of economically showing how much the city needed him.

In all, the film was rich in hermeneutic windows, but didn't totally deliver on the spectacle. Nonetheless it's worth a solid :star: :star: :star: :star: /:star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[Kristian]

Did comic book writer John Byrne have a cameo in the film or was I seeing things? I thought I saw him in the newspaper stand when Peter notices the burning building.

Speaking of comic book stuff, I absolutely loved the sequence where J. Jonah Jameson names Doc Ock. "A guy named Octavius gets four arms. What are the odds?" I also loved the Dr. Strange namedropping in that scene.

 

[Chris]

Stan Lee did.. he was visible at least twice in the streets

 

[Matt Stone]

I didn't notice John Byrne, but I can't remember seeing anyone during the scene you pointed out, hehe.

BTW, anybody know who drew the opening credit stuff?

 

[Adam.Heckman]

Does anyone know what was being alluded to in the two 'running thru the park smiling' scenes? You know, where peter is spider man no more and when mary jane runs out of the church?
When peter did it, it was campy... and the freeze frame!??? What was that? I thought it was humorous, but there had to been more.

Was it an homage to something I'm not familiar with?

 

[Larry Sutliff]

I'm pretty sure it was Alex Ross.

Man, I loved this movie.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Homages to George Roy Hill and BUTCH CASSIDY, I think.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Read Ray's post right above yours. Roger Stern created the Hobgoblin, but left ASM before Hobgoblin's identity was revealed. As I recall, he didn't tell anyone who Hobby was supposed to be, and when the new writers asked him who Hobby was supposed to be, he said, "It's your book. Make him whomever you want him to be."

Many, many years later--in the mid- to late-'90s--Stern was asked to come back and reveal the "true" Hobgoblin. So, Ned Leeds was out, and Kingsley--his original choice--was in. It was sort of a mistake. They should have just lived with their decision. But, that was a period in Spider-Man comicdom that couldn't really get any worse anyway. I don't even like that I can actual remember Demogoblin. Or Carnage, for that matter. I hope he never shows up in a Spidey movie.

I agree that the next one will most likely have two villains. I hope they don't throw the movie out of balance like multiple villains did for the Batman films. And, if they do immediately bring the Goblin back in the next one (and, they pretty much have to after the ending), I seriously hope Harry is a little more demented than his father to the point that he picks a more extreme costume (read: one that looks like the comic version).

They've definitely set it up for the Lizard to make the scene, but they could carry Connors for another movie. Who knows. I still want to see the black costume. Has Raimi said he didn't like that costume like he said he wasn't a Venom fan?

 

[Greg_S_H]

Are you sure that wasn't intentional? My audience was pretty into the film, and that got a pretty healthy laugh. The final punchline was finding out she was a few inches off a nice, wide ledge.