Spider-man 2

Many critics are calling this an improvement over the first movie, and they’re probably right. But both are fairly routine minor variations on superhero tropes that have been around for over half a century, and as such I find them blending together into one ultimately forgettable (if agreeable) four-hour romp. As Dr. Octopus, Alfred Molina makes a more baroque supervillain than Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, but the other starsTobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmonsseem happy to be giving us more of the same. Sam Raimi’s direction, on the other hand, is even more fluent and well paced, integrating the hero’s spectacular acrobatics with the grueling horrors of being a working-class teen. PG-13, 127 min. (JR)

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