Spider-Man 2

“Isn’t it about time somebody saved your life?” (2.1 CUT) When Godzilla Minus One released onto the world, the majority of reactions (at least in the States) went out of their way to pile acclaim onto the fact that it was one of the first times you actually found yourself kinda wanting to peer away from the giant monster to see what’s going on with the little people on the ground. That, to me, is always the greatest strength of Spider-Man 2. Sam Raimi constructs a tangible, incredibly personable drama that is so centered on these people getting entangled in the day-to-day chaos of their lives that you sometimes forget you’ve signed up for a fantasy about a guy in red tights. Stan Lee and the various cohorts of silver age Marvel always approached the material and the mythos with the mentality of a soap opera. Larger than life bad guys and bombastic adventured laced with potent melodrama and out-of-costume turmoil. They put an emphasis on the personal lives of Marvel’s lineup of icons and that’s what I think Raimi so beautifully emphasizes on here. First time watching the 2.1 version of the film in some time. Some of it I find myself wishing they’d have kept in the Final Cut (the extra stuff with Harry is riveting), other parts of it I see why it was left on the cutting room floor. But it’s still part of a larger exoskeleton that always forms Spider-Man 2. Pretty unambiguously my favorite superhero film that isn’t Unbreakable. Builds upon everything that the first film did so well and jets forward with it. I always find myself amazed at how much New York City feels like a living, breathing character in these. Love that these films champion Spidey as their hero, unabashedly so. Million little details popping out to me thanks to the canvas that is the big screen. Tobey’s finest scene in the whole film to me is when he confesses everything to MJ via a silent pay phone. Never saw until now that he’s got duct tape holding his backpack together. Peter’s misery and his struggles are paramount in their omnipresence throughout so much of the film, even in the tiniest ways. It makes the moment when Mary Jane looks out into the crowd and finds him, and that look they share with one another, all the more palpable and exhilarating. Raimi was an underrated god at romance. Peter telling MJ that he doesn’t love her; MJ calling his bluff and telling him to kiss her. His powers leaving when he thinks she’s out of his life and then regaining them when it comes time to save her. Say it basically every time I talk about it but, like with Superman, I find Spider-Man to functionally be a love story and if the romance doesn’t work, you have a huge problem on your hands. Bill Pope deserves all the flowers in the world for how he shoots this. Makes it look like the most gentle, glowing romcom and then lets the screen explode with some of the most exhilarating set pieces committed to celluloid. It’s just the best. I admire so much that the platonic ideal for the modern superhero movie is anchored by a hard focus on benign, unselfish acts of kindness. Found tears burning the corners of my eyes when we get to May’s speech about heroes and it took everything in me not to start blubbering like a child. Spider-Man means a lot to me. “Go get ‘em, Tiger.”