The first era of Marvel Comics movie adaptations was, not unlike the MCU, filled with as many fan-favorite successes as it was critical and commercial disappointments. On the early side of the last 1990s and early 2000s there were the first two Blade movies, the first two X-Men movies, and the first two Spider-Man movies. As for the mid to late 2000s, there was Daredevil and Elektra, Ghost Rider, the two Fantastic Four movies, The Punisher, and Hulk. And, of the 16 total movies released throughout that decade of Marvel movies, there was only one that has since irrefutably been confirmed as the masterpiece many people figured it to be at the time of release. Specifically, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2.
But just what is it about Spider-Man 2 that makes it both fully entertaining and thematically moving, even over 20 years later? There are several factors, each of them no more or less important than the other.
A Perfectly Paced Narrative
The biggest complaint people had about Spider-Man 3 (outside perhaps the Saturday Night Fever emo dance) was that it was an over-stuffed movie. Sandman worked, but Venom didn’t, and by trying to focus on both it did neither one of them justice. The film also failed to organically continue Peter Parker’s storyline, nor successfully cap off Harry Osborn’s. With Spider-Man 2, every important element gets the perfect amount of focus.
Doc Ock is the most fleshed-out villain of the franchise, perhaps even of comic book cinema as a whole. Peter’s personal struggle with his powers and their dominance over his personal life is also covered to the extent that the audience feels his stress and the internal tug-of-war. And, jumping off that personal struggle, it manages to further develop his tumultuous will-they-won’t-they with Mary Jane in a way that is both believable and elicits audience empathy for them both.
Naturally, when looking at a superhero movie, one must also analyze what source material it specifically looked to in order to craft the narrative. In the case of Spider-Man 2 there was a perfect combination of “If This Be My Destiny…!” for some of Doc Ock’s characterization and “Spider-Man No More!” for the Peter-centric plotline.
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The Cast and Crew’s Comfort
Of course, 2002’s Spider-Man was a massive commercial success and did just as well critically. And, in its own right, it too is a minor classic. But Spider-Man 2 ups it at its own game in every way possible.
This includes the comfort with the material that everyone involved clearly had. Tobey Maguire is a little looser in the role, his chemistry with Kirsten Dunst is even sharper, and Sam Raimi has a firm grasp over such a substantial budget. They all did well out the gate with the first movie, but it’s here that they all showed they could turn a thrill-a-minute summer blockbuster and make it work in that field just as well as it can work as an Oscar-worthy piece of cinema.
But, naturally, a superhero movie can’t fully be all it can be without a worthy supervillain. And, in Doc Ock actor Alfred Molina, the sequel got the one performer who could be more effective than Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin. Dafoe’s Goblin was instantly iconic, and rightly so. He is to this day the most intimidating and memorable villain an on-screen Spider-Man has ever faced. However, even as a man whose mind was being torn apart and was leaving his own son in the rearview mirror, he never elicited a shred of the empathy garnered by Molina’s Ock.
Doc Ock genuinely wants to make the world a better place. It’s just that the power he’s cultivating to do so is more than he anticipated, and, in that miscalculation, he loses the love of his life and, to an extent, his love for life. He very nearly loses his soul entirely.
That “very nearly” is important because even as we’ve gone deep into the world of superhero cinema, where about a half dozen entries are released each year, no antagonist has received as compelling and believable an arc as Ock. In the end, the good within him wins out over the lies fed to him by his snipping robot arms. It’s compelling stuff, the type of character arc that would pull at the heart strings of even those who look at superhero movies as nothing more than silly fluff generated en masse to get butts in seats and keep movie theaters in the black.
You can stream Spider-Man 2 on Netflix and Disney+.
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