‘Tis the season for the cinema of spectacle, and Spiderman 2 bangs and crashes onto our screens with great expectations and remarkable aplomb. Having swooped through the first instalment, the delectable Tobey Maguire has now tired of testing Newtonian physics and properly entered ‘hero in crisis’ mode. He’s flat broke, flunking college, losing Mary Jane (Dunst, and yes, there’s another wet T-shirt shot), getting the hairdryer treatment from his editor (the magnificent, show-stealing Simmons), suffering from the web-slinging equivalent of erectile dysfunction and – horror of horrors - even has his comic-book collection chucked out by his aunt. The indignities climax with the puppy-eyed one getting fired from his pizza delivery gig, a rung of the employment ladder somewhere between syringe-disposer and rent-boy. Naturally, he’s somewhat perturbed and decides the only thing for it is to ignore the nagging conscientious inner-voice of his late Uncle Ben (“With great power comes great responsibility”), ditch his arachnoid alter-ego and slide back into happy geekdom.
Of course, even those with the most cursory knowledge of the genre (say a drunken, Christmas viewing of Superman 2) know that superhero retirement always precipitates the arrival of a nefarious villain, and Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock does the honours. In time-honoured tradition, the once good doctor has recently been widowed during an audacious fusion experiment. (Cue the best rendition of the obligatory ‘Nooooo!’ ever heard outside The Simpsons.) Distraught, and now wielding nanobotic tentacles with their own misanthropic issues, he sets about re-staging his failed sub-atomic venture with potentially apocalyptic consequences. But will our friendly neighbourhood protagonist stop moping in time to web-sling to victory? Well, yes, obviously, but if Spiderman 2 is less than revolutionary in form, its still slick, swishy entertainment and a fantastic showcase for Sam Raimi’s parodic style. Hyper-kinetic and punctuated by spectacular set pieces, the director marries Evil Dead screaming bouts to Stan Lee’s delightfully adolescent sensibilities to create a gripping, superior sequel that’s still decidedly PG in tone.
Indeed Spiderman 2 has everything a comic-book movie ought to – lively pyrotechnics, teen angst, puppy love and a Bruce Campbell cameo. What’s not to like? Swing along and get your spidey senses tingling.