Why Spi­der-Man 2 is the great­est block­buster of the 21^st century

Ten years ago the dis­as­trous third and final entry in Sam Raimi’s mega-bud­get Spi­der-Man tril­o­gy crys­tallised the franchise’s rep­u­ta­tion as sil­ly, non-seri­ous cin­e­ma. In hind­sight, this brand of super­hero enter­tain­ment stands in direct oppo­si­tion to the cur­rent homoge­nous crop of po-faced com­ic book adap­ta­tions. But even that film, in which the hero faces his ​‘dark side’ in the fig­ure of Ven­om, hint­ed at the strained seri­ous­ness that has come to dom­i­nate the super­hero movie land­scape in the post-Nolan era.

The cur­rent sta­tus quo in the genre makes the absur­dist, irrev­er­ent tone of 2004’s Spi­der-Man 2 seem all the more aston­ish­ing today. Most humour in the film draws on Peter Parker’s per­ma­nent sta­tus as a nerd – an awk­ward, neb­bish pres­ence out­side of the famous cos­tume. A naïve man-child, Park­er reacts to the series of bru­tal chal­lenges he faces with a melan­cholic pout and a half-smile. His response to being repeat­ed­ly jos­tled in the street is an amused, embar­rassed chuck­le. The total lack of real­ism in Tobey Maguire’s career-defin­ing per­for­mance places Raimi’s tril­o­gy firm­ly in the realm of fan­ta­sy. There is no Actor’s Stu­dio work being done here. Con­trast­ed with more recent com­ic book fare, the thrill of a big action sequence is now per­pet­u­al­ly damp­ened by an insis­tent aware­ness of dis­as­trous con­se­quences as embod­ied by the brood­ing of an Oscar win­ner, a shake of their head and an exis­ten­tial monologue.

Park­er is pre­sent­ed here as hilar­i­ous­ly and irri­tat­ing­ly pas­sive, so much so that, in ear­ly scenes, the mature and assertive Mary-Jane (Kirsten Dun­st) seems almost harsh for com­ing on strong and demand­ing respect from her soon-to-be beau. Yet noth­ing is arbi­trary in Spi­der-Man 2, and as Parker’s pas­siv­i­ty catch­es up with him, it reveals itself to be more than a mere comedic char­ac­ter trait, linked as it is into the over­all arc of a film which sees Park­er over­whelmed by his alter ego.

Raimi’s orig­i­nal Spi­der-Man from 2002 saw our hero learn that ​“with great pow­er comes great respon­si­bil­i­ty.” The series of humil­i­a­tions and dis­ap­point­ments that opens the sec­ond film – from a botched piz­za deliv­ery to a dis­pute with a tyran­ni­cal land­lord – serves as a reminder that with human pow­er comes human respon­si­bil­i­ty. If Park­er wants to have a ​‘nor­mal’ life, he must fol­low the rules of inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships and not dis­ap­point everyone.

After meet­ing inspir­ing sci­en­tist Doc­tor Octavius (Alfred Moli­na, unfor­get­table in a nuanced per­for­mance), Peter gains the con­fi­dence to believe his aca­d­e­m­ic intel­li­gence is as much of a pre­cious gift as his super pow­ers. With great intel­li­gence comes the even greater respon­si­bil­i­ty to use it, and Park­er hangs up his Spi­der suit to focus on his stud­ies, a change which gives him more time to con­cen­trate on his home life and turn things around. It seems to be the per­fect solu­tion to his prob­lems, were it not for his respon­si­bil­i­ty as a superhero.

Park­er is soon recalled to his duties when Octavius becomes obsessed with a poten­tial­ly world-end­ing inven­tion after he morphs into the awe­some­ly ten­ta­cled Doc­tor Octo­pus (an ear­ly tri­umph for pho­to-real­is­tic CG and prac­ti­cal effects). Obey­ing only a self­ish desire to bring his machine to com­ple­tion and explore the full poten­tial of his intel­li­gence, Doc Ock puts peo­ple in harm’s way, includ­ing Mary-Jane.

It’s a pow­er­ful wake up call for Peter who realis­es that he has put his intel­li­gence before his hero­ic pow­ers for entire­ly self­ish rea­sions. For a time he has been able to expe­ri­ence the praise and ful­fil­ment that come with the skills he holds as him­self, some­thing he cru­cial­ly has nev­er been able to enjoy while sav­ing lives as a masked hero. But such glo­ry is sim­ply not pos­si­ble for Park­er. He must face the sad truth that, in his case, pur­su­ing a nor­mal life would be a self­ish act.

As such, the film offered up the promise of a fran­chise that would not select its vil­lains at ran­dom, but rather the­mat­i­cal­ly link them to the main character’s growth as both a hero and as a per­son. Yet, it was a promise swift­ly dashed by the mul­ti­ple vil­lains and the­mat­ic inco­her­ence of the 2007 three­quel. Spi­der-Man 2 is a per­fect super­hero film sequel: able to stand on its own as a self-con­tained sto­ry while also exten­sive­ly and intel­li­gent­ly draw­ing from and devel­op­ing the char­ac­ters and themes estab­lished in the pre­vi­ous episode.

Nowa­days, Super­hero sequels are, for the most part, aimed at hard­core fans who have the pre-aware­ness and com­mit­ment to fol­low con­fused sto­ry­lines across past, present and future. Fan the­o­ries crude­ly engulf the screen as char­ac­ters form alliances and sep­a­rate out as they would in a soap opera. And this is not down to nar­ra­tive neces­si­ty, but to cre­ate new thrills that are often as ephemer­al as they are nonsensical.

In that sense, Spi­der-Man 2 belongs to a bygone era of fran­chise block­busters. But this also comes down to ide­ol­o­gy. Per­pet­u­al­ly jol­ly, the film refus­es to adopt the de rigueur mis­an­thropy and pes­simistic view on human­i­ty artic­u­lat­ed by the Ayn Rand-infused opera stylings of Bat­man V Super­man. While Park­er and Octo­pus are por­trayed as sim­i­lar but on dif­fer­ent sides of the law, the lat­ter is by no means the ​‘dark side’ of the for­mer. There is no sense of true, straight­for­ward evil in the world of Spi­der-Man 2. Rather, we are pre­sent­ed with mis­guid­ed, heart­bro­ken and des­per­ate peo­ple who have lost all sense of scale and responsibility.

The moment when Doc Ock final­ly comes to his sens­es is all the more mov­ing pre­cise­ly because of how bad­ly he has act­ed pre­vi­ous­ly. That Park­er/Spi­der-Man would give him a chance to act like the kind human being he once knew makes for a heart­break­ing­ly beau­ti­ful moment. It expos­es the film’s sin­cere belief in human­i­ty, the spir­it of com­mu­ni­ty and for­give­ness. It is not because peo­ple are weak that Spi­der-Man must fight crime (see: The Dark Knight), but because he is the sin­gle indi­vid­ual giv­en the (super) pow­er to stop those who have strayed too far to be saved by a sim­ple act of kind­ness. He is here when the empa­thy of peo­ple such as the doomed Uncle Ben of the first film, and the second’s moral arbiter, the love­ly Aunt May, fail to bring des­per­ate peo­ple to their senses.

Spi­der-Man is not all pow­er­ful. He is not a ​‘God amongst Men’. He is a last resort against unreg­u­lat­ed human vio­lence. The film push­es the idea that men should not act as gods: Doc Ock cre­ates an actu­al sun – a uni­verse – before his Icarus-like fall from grace. It is because Park­er is only human – and not a fig­ure to be admired sole­ly on the basis that he has super­nat­ur­al pow­ers – that the film is not afraid of ridi­cul­ing him. Con­tem­po­rary super­hero films rarely devi­ate from the idea of the hero as a per­fect indi­vid­ual (as opposed to the weak­ness and fal­li­bil­i­ty of mor­tals). Their actions are ques­tion­able, but always jus­ti­fied as serv­ing some greater pur­pose, and when they are pure­ly self­ish and vio­lent, their exis­tence is val­i­dat­ed by the fact that they are sim­ply cool and badass (see: Dead­pool).

The con­trast between Deadpool’s self-reflex­ive remarks about the ridicu­lous­ness of super­hero tights and span­dex, and the charm­ing sequence in Spi­der-Man 2 where the hero and a ran­dom civil­ian talk about the dis­com­fort of his tight cos­tume, is a per­fect illus­tra­tion of a con­sid­er­able reg­is­ter shift in super­hero films. Spi­der-Man 2 could live with its char­ac­ter being essen­tial­ly ridicu­lous, an inven­tion for chil­dren. Dead­pool can­not. Of course, like so many post-Iron Man Mar­vel films before it, Dead­pool caters to a pre­dom­i­nant­ly adult audi­ence. Per­haps the kids are now grown-ups afraid to be tak­en for geeks? Con­stant self-reflex­iv­i­ty cer­tain­ly speaks of an anx­i­ety about enjoy­ing sil­ly, child­ish enter­tain­ment. Yet it’s in all the super­heroic self­ish­ness and dis­re­gard for con­se­quences that we see some­thing more insid­i­ous, a gross expres­sion of some uncom­pro­mised mas­culin­i­ty now lost.

In a cru­el twist of fate, the recent Cap­tain Amer­i­ca: Civ­il War serves as a reminder that, no mat­ter how ridicu­lous or naïve he might be, Peter Park­er/Spi­der-Man is still one of the best super­heroes. His pow­ers are based on acro­bat­ics, thus his action sequences in which he fea­tures are more thrilling and inge­nious than any weaponised bat­tle. That our hero would be dis­arm­ing­ly opti­mistic and obliv­i­ous to per­il makes sense. His inge­nu­ity and care­less­ness – his essen­tial human­i­ty – are what allows him to do the impos­si­ble and get him­self out of the trick­i­est situations.

What do you think is the great­est block­buster of the 21^st cen­tu­ry? Have your say @LWLies