A true sizzling superhero

Kerpow! Kerching! Spider-Man 2 is upon us. But beware, there is as much talk as action in the second edition, and not all hard-core aficionados of Marvel Comics may approve. They would be wrong, however, to regret that the farfrom-illiterate comic strip has been made into a very literate popcorn movie. Its makers understand that it is not enough just to spread lashings of computerised special effects around and hope for the best.

What we have is a character and plot-driven film, as much as a summer-time spectacular. Sam Raimi, director of the first film, orchestrates the sequel with a knowing skill. It looks as if the suits haven't got in his way this time, and giving him and screenwriter Alvin Sargent their heads has paid significant dividends.

This is a better picture than the first because it makes its characters human, doesn't camp it up and refuses to believe that Kerpow! Kerching! is more than a constituent part of the proceedings. Even minor characters get a chance to act, rather than merely react. Hence very watchable performances by Rosemary Harris as Peter Parker's Aunt May and JK Simmons as his grandstanding Daily Bugle boss.

But it's Tobey Maguire as Peter, Kirsten Dunst as his long-time love and Alfred Molina as the not entirely villainous Doc Ock that you'll want to watch closest. Each shows us threedimensional characters doing more than simply mouthing lines between the action scenes.

Maguire and Dunst deepen their performances considerably, while Molina, new to the franchise, is at last given a Hollywood role that is worthy of his talents. Molina's Doc Ock is far more intriguing than the Green Goblin, and he is aided, rather than hindered, by some formidable special effects.

Peter's struggle with "the gift and the curse" of his Spider-Man powers forms the greater part of the first half of the film and is both funny and touching. He wants his Mary Jane (Dunst) desperately, but he can't have her and save New York from danger as well.

It seems that he can't have anything else either, since his college studies are constantly interrupted, his part-time pizza-delivery job is a disaster, he almost wrecks his Spider-Man outfit in the launderette and something goes wrong even when he tries to see Mary Jane on stage in The Importance of Being Earnest. His heroic exploits make him late for everything (though I have to say he didn't miss all that much, judging by the bits we saw of the Oscar Wilde play).

There seems to be nothing that Peter

can do about the bovine astronaut who proposes to his would-be lover and who is reluctantly accepted. The Superhero is Supernerd unless he is charged with the protection of the world. He can't protect himself at all. All this is accomplished with just the right blend of irony and affection, so that we will him to triumph against Doc Ock.

The action is paramount in the second half. The satisfying sequences include one episode that is a model of its kind, when Spider-Man and Doc Ock grapple atop a train en route straight into the sea. Computer graphics often make you feel weary of their omnipotence, but here there is a genuine sense of imminent disaster, and the terrified passengers are sketched in shrewdly.

There are some duller moments of arid philosophising, and the film's finale seems more about fixing up the third film in the series than ending the second properly. But for every grumble, there are pluses. Spider-Man 2 bids fair to become the best of the summer's blockbusters. It may even be the most successful.