Spider-Man 2

Reviewed by EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * *)


Good news for all those mums of wannabe superheros who were nagged to buy the red-and-blue suit and cape, then found the colours ran through the rest of the washing: the superhero has the same problem when he does the laundry.

Leafing through the internet pages it's clear that many aficionados regard the Spider-Man movie franchise as the one that's most true to the comic-book readers' vision. For Peter Parker is not so much a superhero as an insecure kid who doesn't really know what he's been dropped into and worries about how to handle the pressure of saving the world.

In this second episode Parker (Tobey Maguire) has moved on to college, where he's appropriately studying physics, and failing, and still confused about his feelings for Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). He's lost his pizza delivery job and the bank wants to foreclose on Aunt May (Rosemary Harris).

It's all too much for Spidey: he feels the web closing in on him. Or, more to the point, his ability to spin webs is fading away. When he's washing his suit in the laundromat and the colours run, he throws it away.

But a superhero can't get out of it that easily. On the banks of the East River Dr Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) is experimenting to prove that fusion can work as a cheap source of energy by turning himself into a human — or superhuman — power station.

And he will have to deal with Mary Jane, who has dumped him because he's always standing her up (his story: he fears he's exposing her to danger from his enemies) and is engaged to an astronaut. His corporate friend, Harry Osborn (James Franco), likes Peter but hates Spider-Man because Harry believes Spidey killed his dad, the Green Goblin.

So there's a host of storylines, and unusually for a superhero movie, director Sam Raimi allows his characters to explore them, and to develop beyond their cartoon personas over the movie, even if the dialogue is leaden and preachy.

Spiderman 2 comes into its own, however, in the DVD. Not only is the quality of the vision and sound stunning, once you get past the movie there are more than 10 hours of extras. They range from the expected, like a blooper reel, to exhaustive features on the special effects, trivia tracks, online features, profiles of the characters, and a peek at the videogame.

DVD, video rental out now