Spider-Man 2 (fight 1 of 2)

Spidey makes bank.

There’s a “bailout” joke to be made somewhere in this post. I can’t promise I’ll find it.

Everyone’s wild about Spider-Man 2; personally I always found it somewhat overrated. It raises way too many storytelling red flags: the whole clunky plotline about how Peter keeps losing his powers because he subconsciously doesn’t want them (even in the middle of a life-or-death situation? I would have to think his survival instinct would override his girlfriend angst), the half-assed/poorly-resolved love triangle with Mary Jane & her poor fiancee, and, most grating of all, the film’s overwhelming negativity. It’s true that great swathes of the comic book source material could be accurately reduced to “life craps on Peter Parker” but being subjected to so much of it at once over the course of a two-hour+ movie is tiresome. I mean, there’s seriously a scene in this movie where an already-bummed Peter is at a party and gets literally slapped around by his drunken best friend, and then right after that Peter has to watch a handsome astronaut gleefully announce his engagement to the love of Peter’s life. It’s so transparently abusive it crosses the line into comical; I half-expected Peter to then get a phone call from Aunt May letting him know she had cancer. In her butt.

It also comparably skimps on the fight scenes. There’s still no shortage of superhero action– Spidey swinging around New York, foiling criminals and mad science experiments alike– but actual fights are very few. Fortunately, what do we get is quite impressive indeed.

1) Spider-Man vs Doctor Octopus, round one

The Fighters:

• Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, who you well know. Settled even more into his alter ego now, which is wreaking havoc on his real life. Played by Tobey Maguire.
• Otto Octavius aka “Doctor Octopus,” a name given to him by the Daily Bugle after a science experiment gone wrong left him with eight total limbs. In contrast to the comics, this Otto’s “personality is different, which is to say, it actually exists,” in the words of one of my favorite bloggers. Otto is a kindly but driven scientist who loses his beloved wife in the same grisly accident that makes him a monster. Played by the great Alfred Molina, who is less crazy playing an actual supervillain than he was in Boogie Nights.
  • Armed with: Those extra four limbs are impressive steel appendages from a harness on Otto’s back that are easily over four feet long, each about as flexible as a garden hose and equipped with deadly gripper claws, cameras, and a few other tricks. They have a limited A.I. and so can move semi-independently of Otto, and in return can influence him; the explosion that fused the harness to his back also destroyed the “inhibitor chip” that kept them from getting into his head. Originally the device was created so he could perform dangerous experiments from a remote distance, but it’s actually quite the impressive scientific achievement itself. Maybe he should have patented that instead.

The Setup: Peter and his sweet Aunt May are at a large bank, applying for a loan; she’s fallen on financial hard times because, again, Spider-Man 2 is nothing if not a relenting onslaught of depression. The smarmy loan officer who denies (of course) their request is none other than TV’s Joel McHale.

Classic Winger

Meanwhile, by incredible coincidence, Dr. Octopus is also present. Due to a combination of grief-induced madness and the influence of his tentacles’ wacky A.I., poor Otto has become convinced that his one purpose left in life is to succeed at the cold-fusion experiment that screwed everything up in the first place. Naturally, he’s taken up bank robbery (a grand supervillain tradition) in order to finance it. I’d love to see the lab equipment distributors who’d accept literals bags ‘o cash payment from a robo-tentacled lunatic, but okay. Maybe he “knows a guy.”

Dressed in fedora and trench coat like a dime-store version of The Shadow, Dock Ock just walks right in and straight-up rips off the vault door like a baller.

Classic Otto.

After narrowly avoiding the discarded door, Peter ditches May and changes into his costume while Octavius fights off some guards. The hero re-enters the scene quickly and tries to sneak up on Otto from behind, but one of the tentacles can still “see” even when the villain’s back is turned.

The Fight: Dr. Octopous whips around and uses his tentacles (in fact, at this point let’s just assume that most major fight functions Otto does are performed by his metal limbs rather than his organic ones unless otherwise stated, okay?) to fling some of his heavy loot bags at Spider-Man. The hero dodges them easily, even snagging one with a web and flinging it back in Otto’s face with a cheery “here’s your change!” Not quite on the level of comic Spidey’s legendary wit, but cute.

Octavius is briefly fazed, but he soon returns to flinging bags again. Spider-Man tries to dodge and deflect, but that stupid power-failing thing happens again, so he ends up eating a sack of cash and taking a dive. Otto grabs seizes the hero in a pretty dire-looking bind.

It’s the kind of thing you might think would be funny to describe as “hot tentacle action,” if you were me nine years ago

The two have a fun exchange (“You’re starting to get on my nerves.” “I have a knack for that.”) but before our spider gets his head squished, he uses his free-ish hands to web two large desks on either side of him and pull them in. This makes Otto drop him while he defends himself against one piece of flying furniture but still gets creamed by the other and knocked through the window onto the street.

The police are waiting outside, so Dr. Octopus prudently takes a hostage… wouldn’t you know it, it’s Aunt May! He climbs up a nearby building while his signature music– a delightful monster movie-esque motif– kicks in. Spider-Man lands up higher on the wall and demands that Octavius turn her over. He seems willing to do so, but of course IT’S A TRAP! and the villain drops her. Peter is able to dive down and catch her then web them both up high, which leaves him vulnerable to attack.

After Otto gets in a few licks the two start going at it in earnest, largely trading blows up close as they fall down the side of the building.

The CGI is not always convincing and the action is a little confusing, but it’s intense and fun nonetheless. Octavius is finally able to seize his foe and fling him all the way across the street, and re-positions himself near May, who’s only just found her footing. As he taunts Spider-Man to come back over & play, he prepares a steel spike behind his back, which May sees.

An unsuspecting Spidey across the street does that trick from the first movie where he uses two webs to pull back and slingshot himself at high velocity. He flies in like a bullet, and before Doc Ock can spear him, the hero gets some unlikely assistance.

Betty White-style

The distraction allows Peter to dodge the spike, grab his aunt as she falls, and take her to safety as Otto scurries off. May is pleased to be proven wrong about “that awful Spider-Man” but still implies she deserves credit for the outcome of the fight. Oh, you wacky old people.

This is some solid superhero fun. It’s not quite an epic clash but the fight does score points for moving briskly from inside the bank to the street then to fairly up high in the air. The expected punches and tentacle-swipes are augmented with blows in the form of desks and money bags (and one mean umbrella), making for a more dynamic encounter.

The octopus elephant in the room here is how hard it is for our hero to take Dr. Octopus down. Unlike the Green Goblin, Octavius’ overall physiology was left largely unchanged by the incident that made him a supervillain; except for that tentacle-harness and some bad brain wiring, he’s completely human… and a paunchy, middle-aged scientist at that. Once Peter gets in close, Otto should be even easier to take down than Flash Thompson; one punch ought to be enough to knock his block off (and in the comics, it typically was), yet movie-Ock absorbs a numerous spider blows, not to mention getting bowled over by a massive desk and so forth.

Does it matter? Your mileage may vary. Personally, I’d say Raimi and co. had enough of a challenge constructing dynamic & quasi-believable superhero fights as it was without having to worry about the additional restriction of not letting the hero lay a finger on the villain until the very end. Think of this suspension of disbelief as similar to the one that must be engaged whenever the film switches over to obvious (but still necessary) CGI.

Grade: B+

Coming Attractions: Rumble in the jungle.

Uh, the urban jungle.