Now, this is borderline blasphemy in the circles I run with (or wished I ran with, anyway), but I don't much care for Spider-Man 2. It's a film that many of my ilk describe as "the best superhero movie EVER!!!!1!" I, however, reserve that spot as a two-way tie between Dark Knight and Iron Man (for completely different reasons).
As I have gotten into a mini-debate with Marvel scribe Dan Slott over Twitter about the cinemagraphic merits of the previous SM trilogy, I thought I'd share why I've come to loathe the second part (the third still sucks, too).
There were always parts of Spider-Man 2 that bothered me. Toby Maguire, for one. And Kirsten Dunst. I didn't mind her in the first one, but I think that's just because they kept putting her in a tank top and getting her wet. But, beyond the acting, there were story and cinematography choices that I found devestating to the films overall enjoyability.
Item the first: There were several instances of where a person (in this case women) ran screaming into the camera. Who makes a movie that way? A B-level horror film director. That's who.
Second: Spider-Man has the proportional strength of a spider. To give a real life example, he could bench press my car. If he hits Doc Ock (a normal guy who, yeah, has metal arms grafted to his abdomen, but those can't really enhance his endurance), then the ol' Roy Orbison (look it up, they used to make the reference in the comics...a lot) look alike is going down. Sure, it looks neat to have them punching and stuff as they're falling, but from a story standpoint, that doesn't make sense.
Third: Spider-Man loses his powers...because he was having a bad day! I'd hate to see what would've happened had something really bad happened to Pete...like stubbing his toe! Not only that, but then he consciously blocks out his spider powers after some out of body meeting with his dead Uncle Ben. Sure, the argument could be made that it is a psychological thing, but that wouldn't explain why his physique detiorated or that his eyesight worsened.
Fourth: The villain wasn't responsible for his actions. Because of that stupid, and hackneyed, plot device of the AI controller, Doc Ock was no longer as potent a villain as he had been in the comics. He was no longer that bad of a guy, since it was the mechanical arms he fried to his torso that were making him do all those bad things. Really? Was that necessary? And was it also necessary to stick in that awful bit of exposition about the AI control through that journalist who knew just enough to know to ask that question?
So when people lay blame to Spider-Man 3 as the downfall of the series, I say nay. Sure, it was an awful film, but there was nothing there that you couldn't have seen comin' due to SM2. Except, y'know, that they rewrote the beginning of the first film to give Spidey an emotional hook to the villain (Sandman being his Uncle's shooter was an awful decision on Raimi's part). And the jazz dance scene. No one could've seen that coming. Blame the studio heads all you want for making Raimi shoehorn Venom into the film, but it was Raimi's fault for having an already bloated script.
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