- Total Gross: $783,766,341
- Distributor:Sony / Columbia
- Release Date: June 30, 2004
- Genre:Action / Adventure
- Running Time: 2 hrs. 7 min.
- MPAA Rating: PG-13
- Production Budget: $200 million
Cast:
Tobey Maguire - Spider-Man/Peter Parker
Kirsten Dunst - Mary Jane Watson
James Franco - Harry Osborn
Alfred Molina - Doc Ock/Dr. Otto Octavius
2005 Academy Awards® :: 1 Wins out of 3 Nominations
Nominated & Won: Best Visual Effects
Nominated: Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing
Spider-Man 2 transcends the boundaries of being just another comic book movie to being a richly character driven movie with a very conflicted hero. Picking up two years after the first Spider-Man left off, Peter Parker has his hands full with three full-time jobs. He is going to school full time, he is working full time to pay off his rent, and he is a hero always on call whenever he hears a siren. Not to mention, we see the emotional toll that has been taken on him, his only surviving family member, his Aunt May, has become consumed with grief and loss over the death of her husband (incidentally, creating Spider-Man in the first part), Peter's friend Norman Osborne is now at odds with him since he has become consumed with revenge over Spider-Man killing his father (the Green Goblin), and his love affair with Mary Jane-Watson is slowly being extinguished because he is never there for her to return the feelings she has for him. And this is all in the first fifteen minutes of the film. As Spider-Man, Parker is even in danger of losing his powers as his exhaustion slowly begins to take over. Eventually, Peter decides to give up being Spider-Man to finally bring peace into his life. When he sees someone being beaten up in an alley, he turns around to walk away. When the familiar sirens fly past him again, he just eats a hot dog. In short, Parker has finally succumbed to being a New Yorker. Sam Raimi does a great job, knowing when to hold on a character's face long enough or swinging the camera along with Spider-Man to give the audience the exhilaration of flight. Raimi is more than competent enough to give this movie the look and feel of a moving comic book and by utilizing his most signature camera shot.
