Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Directed by: Sam Raimi

Starring: Tobey Maguire, James Franco, Kirsten Dunst, and Alfred Molina

Our friendly neighborhood spider Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) finds himself in his own personal hell in Spider-Man 2.  The love of his life Mary Jane Watson is engaged to another man.  His best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco) believes Spider-Man killed his father Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) in cold blood.  Finally, his powers are on the fritz because he is foregoing a relationship with the love of his life.  With all of this, Peter Parker is a very conflicted hero.  Meanwhile, New York City is being terrorized by a mad scientist with mechanical limbs named Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina).  Dr. Octavius is intent on destroying the city for the sake of his experiments.  

In each of the Spider-Man films, Sam Raimi tried to make the movie feel like an actual comic book.  The technique was the most successful for Spider-Man 2.  Several of the action sequences between Doc Ock and Spider-Man serve as great examples of this.  During the sequences in which they were fighting in mid air, Raimi gave us an aerial view of them that unmistakably resembled how fight scenes would be drawn in a comic book.  Raimi successfully immersed us into the comic book world. 

Until The Dark Knight came out, I thought that Spider-Man 2 was the greatest comic book movie I had ever seen. It was a film with great storytelling, plenty of action, great special effects, and a lot heart.   It still stands as one of the greatest comic book movies ever made and has definitely earned a sober rating.