Spider-Man 2 Movie Review

Here's why Toby Maguire's Spider-Man is the greatest superhero in movie history:

Maguire so completely embodies the character's unique yin and yang -- the joyous, daredevil confidence of Spidey and the sweet, self-doubting young chump that is Peter Parker -- that the exhilarating action in "Spider-Man 2" is less interesting than his inner turmoil at being torn between doing what he's compelled to do and having the life he wants.

It rips Peter up inside to lie to Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) -- the girl he not-so-secretly loves and who not-so-secretly loves him back -- in order to protect her from the horrors that could befall a superhero's girlfriend if any super villains knew who she was. It hurts him to know that his best friend, Harry Osborn (James Franco), wants to kill Spider-Man because Spider-Man killed his father (the first movie's Green Goblin).

He's not a superhero who loves his job, like Superman. He's not a psychologically pent-up billionaire who works out his demons as a vigilante, like "Batman". Peter Parker is an insecure kid who would be just an insecure kid if he didn't believe, as his uncle said before he died in Peter's arms from a carjacker's bullet, that "with great power comes great responsibility."

And here's why "Spider-Man 2" is one of those rarest of cinematic gems -- a sequel that bests its predecessor: None of this complexity takes a back seat to commercialism or clich=E9s. There's no soundtrack-selling cameo by Macy Gray and no villain with an evil cackle eating away at the movie's surprising soul this time. Returning director Sam Raimi breaks more rules than he follows and the resulting depth will improve the film's shelf life. 2002's "Spider-Man" was good bubble gum, but this movie is a Willie Wonka Everlasting Gobstopper.

In "Spider-Man 2," Peter Parker has become tormented by living up to the responsibilities of his secret life, and that has made his personal life a wreck. He's failing his beloved science courses at college, he can't pay his rent to his crazy Russian slumlord, the bank is foreclosing on the house he grew up in with his warm and loving aunt May (Rosemary Harris), and since Mary Jane has become an actress and a model, he's haunted by her beautiful visage on perfume billboards all over New York.

Worse yet, the stress has taken a toll on his super powers. Faced with the possibility of losing MJ forever (she's engaged to marry an astronaut), he's just about to ashcan the Spandex for good when one of his scientific mentors, Doctor Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), who has been working on a breakthrough in fusion, falls victim to a lab accident (this happens a lot to Parker's scientific mentors). He becomes fused to a set of creepy, snake-like robotic arms -- harnessed to his back to help him manipulate his unstable fusion experiments -- and soon the single-minded artificial intelligence that controls the arms is manipulating him instead.

Suddenly determined to see his dangerous experiments through at all costs, the now-psychotic Doc Ock becomes a menace to the city -- and to Peter in particular since he knows Spider-Man is the only one who can stop him from essentially creating a small sun that could consume Manhattan.

Raimi packs this sequel with ante-upping, white-knuckled action scenes that are wildly imaginative -- even reinventing the anachronistic train-top fight sequence on an elevated subway with spectacular results. (Nevermind that New York doesn't have elevated trains, let alone one with unfinished tracks that teeter over the waterfront.)

He improves enormously on the first film's mediocre web-slinging special effects. He peppers the picture with his uniquely, charismatically cheesy sense of humor (one of Spidey's stress symptoms is a loss of web fluid, forcing him to take an elevator from a rooftop in one amusingly awkward scene) and with insider homages to his B-movie beginnings.

Raimi also shows great respect for comic-book lore while having a little ironic fun at the format's expense. "A guy named Octavius ends up with eight limbs! What are the chances?" barks vein-popping, cigar-chomping J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), tight-fisted editor of the trashy tabloid for which Peter freelances as a photographer.

But most of all Raimi demonstrates a gift for melding overblown big-budget action into what is, at its heart, a character-driven drama of human conflict built upon almost profound performances.

Meeting Maguire on every level, Kirsten Dunst once again brings out the depth and emotional puzzlement of Mary Jane, who is constantly on tenterhooks over the pain she feels when Peter pushes her away despite a magnetism between them that is overwhelming. The actress also understands what it takes to be a great damsel in distress, adding fantastic tension to the movie's climax.

Alfred Molina ("Frida"www.contactmusic.com/new/film.nsf) lends Doc Ock a surprising touch of heartbreak as somewhere inside his besieged mind he recognizes that he's destroying his dreams -- and potentially killing millions -- but is not able to stop himself. Rosemary Harris has this wonderful way of hinting very, very slightly at Aunt May's suspicions of her dear nephew's secret identity -- even when she's saddled with some badly over-scripted sagacity.

Only James Franco doesn't rise to the occasion, seeming shallow and pouty as Harry -- but maybe that's more the character than the actor. He is, after all, the spoiled but unloved son of a dead millionaire.

"Spider-Man 2" has its share of nagging imperfections -- not the least of which is the fallacious (if not impossible) solution to the movie's action climax. But with the triple-whammy finale that follows, I guarantee you'll be left breathless -- and downright ravenous for the next installment, which unfortunately isn't due until 2007.