It helps quite a bit that the girlfriend in question is the ubiquitous Kirsten Dunst, here in the role of off-Broadway actress and perfume poster model Mary Jane Watson and the love of her life is Tobey Maguire in the dual role of Peter Parker and Spider-Man. No-one has the slightest idea that Parker is in reality a super-hero but all his deeds of derring-do have become compulsive. Couldn't he have a happier life if he hung up his costume and became a normal guy with good grades and best friend of his aging Aunt May (Rosemary Harris)?

What makes the sequel better than the original is that we in the audience are more aware of how limited Peter Parker really is. We can identity with a guy who is failing his courses, who is fired for consistent lateness, and who is too shy to declare how he feels about the woman who considers him her best friend, and he can't even do a wash in the laundromat without ruining his clothes. His reversion to just plain Peter is frustrated when a physicist about whom he is writing a paper botches an experiment in the production of cheap energy. Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) becomes a reluctant villain when four tentacles he has fused to his spine have taken on lives of their own, beyond his control. Like Spider-Man, Doc Ock is able to scale skyscrapers, but while Spidey uses his power instantly to weave powerful webs, Doc Ock drives his tentacles into brick walls. In addition to fighting off this villain, Peter must also deal with the hostility of his rich friend, Harry Osborn (James Franco), who blames Spider-Man for the death of his father.

If there's one quality that makes this somewhat overlong pic soar above other CGI productions, it's the ability of director Sam Raimi to interest the audience equally in the down-to-earth dialogues perhaps even more than in the scaling of buildings and the tossing of police cars about the city. The rapt audience at the SRO screening I attended appeared riveted even to such adult matters as Aunt May's problems with her mortgage. The talk family conferences between May and Peter and the romantic interludes between Peter and Mary Jane came across as involving as the aerial exhibitions. Happily we do not have to say goodbye yet to Spidey as the ending virtually calls out for another sequel.