Fridae

My spider sense has been tingling in anticipation of the mega-summer movie event that is Spiderman 2. With its worldwide release on 30 June 2004, my long wait for the return of everyone's favourite web-slinging hero has finally ended.

Directed by Sam Raimi, Spiderman 2 follows the footsteps of X2 and Terminator 2 by overcoming the dreaded sequelitis syndrome (which afflicted M.I.B. 2 and Batman Forever) and surpassing the original movie in terms of storyline, characters and action scenes.

Reprising his role as the wall crawler and his Everyman alter ego Peter Parker, Tobey Maguire - or rather his bulbous eyes - perfectly convey the inner turmoil of a superhero trying to juggle a punishing crime-fighting schedule and personal problems the likes of being broke, getting fired and falling grades.

Returning for the sequel is love-interest and perpetual villain-bait Mary "MJ" Jane Watson (Kristen Dunst) who is now an actress and an unconvincing billboard model (whoever heard of a straggly haired model without a swan neck or endless legs?). With Peter Parker blowing hot-one-minute and cold-the-next, MJ decides to stop pining for the former and get engaged to the astronaut son (Daniel Gillies) of The Daily Bugle's J. Jonah Jameson (a spot-on J.K. Simmons).

(Note: In Spiderman 2, MJ apparently developed "super-abilities" of her own - including the ability to distinguish her soul-mate by locking (inverted) lips, the ability to speak with a crisp New England accent, the ability to serve as a trouble magnet for super villains and the ability to run for blocks in an anchor-heavy wedding gown without any unsightly sweat stains.)

To complicate matters further, Peter Parker's beloved Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) faces possible eviction and his best friend Harry Obsorne (James Franco) is obsessed with seeking revenge on Spiderman whom he blames for the death of his father (the scenery chewing Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin).

As his problems mount and his arachnid-like abilities begin to fail, our superhero finds himself increasingly torn between his responsibility to society and the pursuit of his own happiness. It is to Spiderman 2's credit that by portraying Peter Parker/Spiderman as a character constantly grappling between what he is compelled to do and the life he wants to lead, the movie has created a superhero with whom the gay and lesbian community can identify and empathise.

After much tortured soul-searching (and countless shots of Tobey Maguire's eyes expanding to scary saucer-like dimensions), Peter Parker finally decides to renounce his Spiderman identity by symbolically dumping his costume in a trashcan. Unfortunately, it is at this precise moment that the movie's requisite villain decides to make his crime debut.

Formerly a brilliant and benign physicist known as Dr. Otto Octavius, Dr. Octopus (Alfred Molina) is the result of a fusion reaction experiment gone wrong. With four evil mechanical arms fused to his spinal cord, Dr. Octopus proves to be a vicious tentacled terror as he takes on Spiderman atop a runaway elevated train, by the side of a building and in numerous battles that invariably send cars flying (I dread to imagine the car insurance premiums).

In addition to jaw-dropping and fluid fight scenes, Spiderman 2, thanks to a solid performance from the cast, is also packed wall-to-wall with engrossing human drama and layered with a pervasive sense of humor. The web of events gradually interweaves and dovetails into a series of finales in which "all will be revealed" (hint hint) - thus setting up the premise for Spiderman 3 scheduled for release in 2007.

A must-see summer movie that is simply spider-rific!