Spider-Man 2

A friend of mine told me that people are comparing Brand New Day to this film in terms of how good it is, and given that I'd never watched this before, I had to watch this for "pre-reading" (any excuse to watch a film). This film is a fantastic depiction of why so many people love Spider-Man — he's what happens when you give superpowers to the average (albeit very smart) student. Genuinely I had my hands on my head every 5 minutes for the first hour as I saw the poor kid's life fall apart piece by piece — his job, his situationship (don't worry I am going to COOK Mary Jane soon), his friendship, his living situation, you name it, everything is going out the window. His admission to Aunt May that he was partly at fault for his uncle's death was surprisingly heartfelt, and I think it really speaks to Tobey's mastery of this role. Alfred Molina also gets a special shout-out from me; he did a fantastic job of making Doc Ock an incredibly dislikeable villain whilst portraying Dr Octavius as a very likeable man. Also I'm not sure if it's just me but it feels like Sam Raimi loves to have women screaming, I can't remember how it was in the first film but in this film I wholeheartedly believe at least half of the female cast were screaming in terror. NOW ONTO MARY JANE WATSON. The villain of this film is NOT Dr Octopus; it is HER. WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE? I have NO QUALMS about how you dealt with Peter; you weren't perfect, but neither was he. However, how do you tell him to KISS YOU when you are ENGAGED WITH SOMEBODY ELSE??? Then, not only does she claim that she "knew" he was Spider-Man (CAP), she LEAVES HER HUSBAND-TO-BE AT THE ALTAR FOR THE MAN WHO ALREADY TOLD HER NO. At this point maybe I need to start reading the comics to see if MJ is actually this insufferable because this is madness. The only other female character I've seen written this badly in superhero live-action media is Iris West ("We are the Flash, Barry"), but everyone knows that the CW Flash fell down a hill eventually. I don't know how MJ is getting away with this, we need a referee or something mannnnn Either way, great film that shows us the weight of such responsibility; sometimes we just can’t do it all, and as we see here, Peter didn’t gain everything back. He’s still jobless (just like me fr) and he’s lost his best friend. Interested to see how they’ll end off the trilogy, but for now, time to enjoy Peak New Day 😮‍💨