Two years later, Sam Raimi adds the inevitable second chapter to an above-average comic-book adaptation, pushing his slugging percentage even a little higher, following up the bloop single of Spider-Man with a ground-ball double just inside the foul line. The approach stays the same: a stress on character and relationship, on psychology and emotion, relieved at tolerable intervals with above-average cartoon action scenes. (The physics of the hero's superpowers are somehow never made as comprehensible or as compelling as his psyche.) The movie is nicely paced and proportioned: an hour or so of struggling to put responsibility ahead of romance (mundane little detail: the spandex Spider-Man costume in the laundromat, discoloring the other clothes in the load); then, at the halfway point, a half an hour of determined renunciation of responsibility (the costume in a trash can); then a final half-hour after a return from retirement and a bumpy re-entry: the high-flying hero's triumphant "I'm back!" will be transposed, through an undignified crash landing, to "My back!" In due time, much is revealed -- which is to say Spider-Man's true identity is much revealed -- and real progress is made along the storyline, although the last-minute head start on the next sequel feels more tiresome than the entire two hours. Tobey Maguire, more hesitant than Hamlet, more demure than Dumbo, makes the most of the Peter Parker alter ego, but must defer to a computer-generated double for the superhero bits. Kirsten "Dimples" Dunst and James "Dean" Franco are back on hand as well, and weigh little in the balance. The big difference, the big improvement, is in the new villain embodied by Alfred Molina. In place of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, the Batman-type antagonist of the first installment, Molina delivers a robust Dr. Octavius, alias Dr. Octopus, or Doc Ock for short, not really a bad guy at all, but an altruistic scientist whose experiments in fusion go horribly awry, leaving him fused to four metallic robot arms, or tentacles, with a mind of their own. Now more spidery than Spidey, he turns into a monster in the tradition -- the species -- of such science-fiction deformities of the Fifties as The Amazing Colossal Man and The Fly. Perhaps, however, the simplest way to appraise the overall level of improvement would be to say that, this time, the irascible newspaper editor of J.K. Simmons ("I don't pay you to be a sensitive artiste!") does not steal the whole show. Only his own scenes. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd