The reason fans love Spider-Man is because he is so relatable. That’s the central message of the brilliant Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse from 2018; teenage protagonist Miles Morales declares at the story’s conclusion, after his own transformative personal journey, that anyone can be Spider-Man, that you can be Spider-Man.
This relatability is why I fell in love with the character when I watched Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man at the age of six. I grew up on Batman and Superman, incredible larger-than-life characters. In contrast, there was something down-to-Earth and understandable about Spider-Man that I felt even at my young age. His wish to balance his responsibilities as a hero while fulfilling his obligations as a friend and nephew echoed what I had heard and witnessed from the adults in my life. The balancing of responsibilities was also something I was beginning to experience myself in a very gentle way as I was entering kindergarten. At the very least, I had to balance school life and family/home life.
My grandma had a small TV with a built-in VHS player back in the day, and one summer, I watched the VHS of Spider-Man basically every day. I had that film memorized. When the sequel Spider-Man 2 came out in 2004, screenplay by Alvin Sargent, screen story by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar and Michael Chabon, and once again directed by Sam Raimi, I remember loving it even more.
Now that the film turns twenty years old, I thought this would be a great occasion to revisit this beloved movie and see it with adult eyes, while reflecting on what compelled me so much about it as a child.
The lead characters are incredible. Tobey Maguire plays Peter Parker as a young man still trying to figure out his place in the world. In the vast majority of the film’s scenes, and especially in the first two acts, he experiences mess up after mess up. He loses his job delivering pizza. He’s behind on rent. His latest paycheck from his photography work for The Daily Bugle isn’t enough to cover the recent advances he has received. His professor at university, Dr. Curt Connors (Dylan Baker) considers him to be lazy after many absences and late assignments and threatens to fail him.
His life is a mess, and the tragic irony of course is that he is unable to care for himself and fulfill his obligations to those close to him due to his double-life as Spider-Man. He’s not lazy, nor is he unreliable; he’s the exact opposite, and he cannot tell anyone the truth of his life because that would risk endangering them.
One such person he constantly fails is his friend and neighbor Mary Jane Watson, played amazingly by Kirsten Dunst. I was moved by the blossoming love story between Peter and Mary Jane when I first watched Spider-Man as a kid. Rewatching this film and the continuation of their relationship as an adult, I was more attuned to the complexities of their romance. Peter lets Mary Jane down when he fails to attend her play because he ends up having to stop robbers as Spider-Man. This isn’t just one unfortunate incident between the star-crossed lovers; this is the latest in a pattern. Mary Jane explains that she cannot rely on him, and that she doesn’t fully know him. There’s a part of him she senses that he’s keeping from her. She tells him that she cannot wait for him, and she dates and agrees to an engagement with someone else.
The tragedy of loving someone and not being able to unite with them is one example of this film’s emotional depth and honesty. This tragedy is shared by both Mary Jane and Peter, as illustrated in one of my favorites scenes during my rewatch. Peter calls from a payphone at his university to apologize. (An interesting detail I noticed is that his school scenes are shot on the real campus of Columbia University, the school where I received my MFA in fiction; it’s strange to think that the film I loved growing up would depict the school I would later attend.) He flounders as he grasps for excuses. When his time on the payphone runs out, he confesses into the phone everything he wishes he could say: that he’s Spider-Man, that he loves her, and that he cannot be with her because he would never forgive himself if he were to endanger her life and cause her to face harm.
My brother joined me in the rewatch this week, and he pointed out the themes of guilt that I missed when I was younger. Part of Spider-Man’s well-known origin story is that a moral failure results in his Uncle Ben (played in the Sam Raimi films by Cliff Robertson, full of paternal love and wisdom, his heart on his sleeve as he shares guidance on responsibility) being killed. Surely, the loss of someone so dear to him would cause Peter to keep Mary Jane at a safe distance.
In a dream sequence in this film, Peter tells his uncle that he cannot live up to the life that his uncle hoped for him. He says he doesn’t want to be the hero anymore. He refuses to be Spider-Man, later tossing his suit in the trash bin.
He has suffered so much, and his heroism has done nothing but ruin his life. Of course, he would want to give it up.
Yet, there’s a goodness in him that he eventually fails to resist, illustrated in the scene where he rushes to save a child trapped in a burning building despite the loss of his powers.
He ultimately chooses to take back his role as Spider-Man and continue with the sacrifices he has made after several important conversations with Aunt May, played skillfully by Rosemary Harris. Aunt May, like Peter, is suffering, also mourning the loss of Ben and struggling to stay afloat financially. In one scene, Peter finally confesses his guilt over how he feels responsible for Ben’s death. Aunt May looks at him with shock and sorrow, and she silently walks away. In a later scene, once the shock has worn off, she tells Peter he’s brave for sharing what has been hurting him for so long. She also talks to him about how Spider-Man, whom Peter photographed as part of his job, is missed by the people of the city. In her talk with her nephew, she defines heroism as goodness or virtue; it is something everyone is capable of, and it allows people to live decent lives and to die with dignity. She also tells him that heroism requires people to often give up their dreams when doing what is necessary.
This, right here, is the heart of the film. In this beautiful moment, the film explains why people have told and loved stories of superheroes, and why people will continue to tell and receive these stories. These stories are aspirational and morally right. They depict for us the kinds of people we should be: selfless, compassionate, courageous. Plus, in the way that Spider-Man embodies these virtues, his story also possesses a deep wisdom: the truth that the right thing to do is almost never the easy thing or the thing we want the most.
I still love Superman and Batman, but I was telling my brother, what have these characters sacrificed? What have they risked?
Spider-Man 2 was my introduction to the world of adulthood, where our best intentions are sometimes not enough, where we stumble and fail despite our best efforts, where we have to sacrifice what we want in order to do the moral thing. I didn’t realize the lessons that this film was sharing with me until I grew up, but even younger me understood the emotional and moral truths and wisdom at the film’s core.
The emotional depth is also extended to the film’s antagonist, Dr. Otto Octavius, portrayed deftly by Alfred Molina. Octavius’s life is ruined after a failed fusion reactor demonstration kills his wife Rosie (Donna Murphy), destroys his lab, and fuses mechanical limbs to his spine. As a kid, I was terrified by how menacing Otto was in his turn to villainy, as he robs banks and kidnaps hostages in his pursuit of his plan. There was also something so cool about his character design on a visual level; the cast and crew translated the character from the comics to the screen perfectly, with his industrial-looking extra arms and his dark sunglasses.
When I recently revisited the film, I was struck by Octavius’s tragedy. He lost everything in his failed science demonstration, so he fixates on repeating the project and succeeding this time. His losses cannot be in vain. That’s why he does what he does. He is a parallel to Peter when Peter rejects being Spider-Man: willing to pursue what he wants at the cost of what is right.
At the film’s climax, Peter shares Aunt May’s wisdom with Octavius, inspiring him to sacrifice himself as he stops his second doomed science demonstration, allowing him to die a hero. Peter also saves Mary Jane, taken hostage earlier by Octavius, and reveals his identity as Spider-Man to her. He confesses his love, along with his reasons for keeping her at a distance. The film ends on a note of muted hope, as Mary Jane arrives at his apartment and the lovers agree to be together, despite the risks.
The character depth and insights on life, love, heroism, and sacrifice are why this film is a classic. These are the reasons the film moved me so much as a kid, and why I can still be reminded of important lessons by it as an adult.
I was amazed to see how little screen time Peter spends in his Spider-Man suit in the first two acts of the film, with the exception of the first fight he has with Octavius once the latter has turned to villainy. The film understands that the story rests on the shoulders of the down-to-Earth characters, on their flaws and dreams and decisions.
This isn’t to say that the film is a deconstruction of the superhero genre, as many great films especially in more recent years have embodied. Spider-Man 2 is a wholehearted celebration of the genre, with incredible action and fight choreography, along with clever editing and cinematography that emulate panels from a comic book. The screen shakes during several of Octavius’s appearances with his hulking mechanical limbs. People run and scream in panic right at the camera. I remember one particularly bold transition, in which the camera zooms in on the spider emblem on Peter’s chest before the shape cuts out and is filled by an exterior shot of a high rise on a stormy night. There are so many funny moments, too. Constant gags involve Peter’s terrible luck. At a party, finger foods are snatched away before he can even try one.
This film isn’t subtle in the slightest. It is bold and exuberant in the way Marvel comic books often are. This boldness, though, doesn’t emerge from goofiness or superficiality. Like in the best stories of any genre, the style emerges from the honesty and depths of the narrative. It is as deep as the very stuff of life. I can think of few things bolder than love or sacrifice.
This film has meant so much to me, and I am grateful that it still moves me today. I look forward to seeing Spider-Man 2 again and again, even after all these years.
Excellent insight!!
This film is an all-time classic! Great review