Product Description

Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina. Peter Parker's double life becomes too much to bear, causing the hero to hang up his costume for the last time-until the brilliant Dr. Otto Octavius becomes deformed in a terrible accident and Peter must answer the city's call for a hero. 2 DVDs. 2004/color/127 min/PG-13.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10925 in DVD
• Brand: Marvel
• Released on: 2004-11-30
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Color, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Dolby, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x 4.00" w x 6.00" l, 1.20 pounds
• Running time: 127 minutes

Features

• DVD

Amazon.com
More than a few critics hailed Spider-Man 2 as "the best superhero movie ever," and there's no compelling reason to argue--thanks to a bigger budget, better special effects, and a dynamic, character-driven plot, it's a notch above Spider-Man in terms of emotional depth and rich comic-book sensibility. Ordinary People Oscar®-winner Alvin Sargent received screenplay credit, and celebrated author and comic-book expert Michael Chabon worked on the story, but it's director Sam Raimi's affinity for the material that brings Spidey 2 to vivid life. When a fusion experiment goes terribly wrong, a brilliant physicist (Alfred Molina) is turned into Spidey's newest nemesis, the deranged, mechanically tentacled "Doctor Octopus," obsessed with completing his experiment and killing Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) in the process. Even more compelling is Peter Parker's urgent dilemma: continue his burdensome, lonely life of crime-fighting as Spider-Man, or pursue love and happiness with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst)? Molina's outstanding as a tragic villain controlled by his own invention, and the action sequences are nothing less than breathtaking, but the real success of Spider-Man 2 is its sense of priorities. With all of Hollywood's biggest and best toys at his disposal, Raimi and his writers stay true to the Marvel mythology, honoring Spider-Man creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and setting the bar impressively high for the challenge of Spider-Man 3. --Jeff Shannon

DVD Features
The first commentary track is by director Sam Raimi and a self-deprecating Tobey Maguire speaking in tandem, and producer (and Marvel CEO) Avi Arad and coproducer Grant Curtis speaking in tandem. They discuss a number of topics, including Raimi's memory of his excitement over Richard Donner's Superman and how the character of Black Cat had to be dropped from the film. The second commentary is by six members of the Oscar-nominated effects team, and one of their primary focuses is how Doc Ock's arms were achieved by a combination of puppetry and CGI.

The centerpiece of the second disc is a massive two-hour documentary that can be viewed all at once or in 12 separate pieces. It covers the development of the story, the visual effects, costumes, stunts, and sound and music. Three shorter featurettes cover Peter Parker's struggle between his personal and hero lives, Doc Ock, and the women in Spider-Man's life, and what's interesting is how they discuss those topics not just in relation to the movies but to the comic books as well. (For example, Betty Brant and Gwen Stacy had a much greater impact in the comics.) There's a scene in which you can toggle among three different camera angles, and a gallery of 17 paintings Alex Ross created for the opening sequence. The sound and picture are spectacular, though only the Superbit edition has DTS. --David Horiuchi

From The New Yorker
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is having problems with his stickiness. He keeps changing into his Spiderman duds, leaping through the canyons of Manhattan, and finding, to his dismay, that the white stuff just won't shoot in the way it used to. No option but to hang up the outfit and walk away. Fortunately, we are only halfway through the movie. Once again, Sam Raimi is the director, and once again the plight is one of uncertainty: to swing or not to swing? Not until the arrival of Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), a many-limbed scientist who likes to do antisocial things to subway cars, is our hero moved to rejoin the action. Molina is the real draw of the film, opting not for the standard evil genius but for a good, sorrowing genius who is nudged into malice by boredom and bereavement. In fact, despite the fantastical high of the set pieces, (not least the most pertinent use of a lady's umbrella since "Mary Poppins"), almost everyone here feels rather lonely and stuck. This could be the first superhero franchise that will end up requiring the services of Ingmar Bergman. With Kirsten Dunst, dreamier than ever, as Peter's beloved (but not girlfriend). -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker