Part 2 (of 8) of my Spider-Man movie re-watch marathon in preparation for No Way Home. As with the first, I'm not going to update my original score for this movie (8/10) based on this viewing, despite many elements not holding up.

**THE BAD:** As with the first, this movie has more than its fair share of cheese. Of course, most of the cheese is likely just a symptom of trying to mirror the comic book story telling of the source material, i.e. the dialogue is simple, the relationships are simple, the character arcs are simple, everything is simple. This isn't an insurmountable flaw and the intentionality of it certainly helps (plus the performers are all game to ham it up), but compared to the more ambitious storytelling in modern superhero media (e.g. Logan or even Infinity War/Endgame), everything on display here starts to feel very Saturday morning cartoon (or rather, old Saturday morning cartoon, as even animated shows these days have stepped up their game, e.g. Harley Quinn or Arcane). Beyond the cheese, most of my critiques from the first movie also return. The relationship with MJ is still a mess. Tobey Maguire still doesn't feel quite right as Spider-Man (although I think his performance is an improvement over the first, mainly because his arc allows him to display a bit more range). Watching back to back with the first also highlighted how Doc Oc's origin is largely a rehash of the Green Goblin's (overly ambitious but not evil man is corrupted by uncontrolled technology that takes over his mind, to the point where they both talk to themselves). Final action set piece was perhaps a bit overly ambitious for the technology available at the time and looks quite dated in several places.

**THE GOOD:** Every scene with J.K. Simmons. The train sequence and really all action sequences involving Doc Oc. More humor. The lost powers plotline, while undoubtedly contrived, does make for some fun moments. The direction is impressive and often memorable. I know this good list feels a bit short, but... it's a Spider-Man movie. The webslinging is more than enough to make up for my nitpicks and at the end of the day its still a good time.