Spider-Man 2 Revisited: 5 Criticisms Nobody Ever Admits

5. The Villains' Entire Plan Is Stupid

On a fundamental level, the plot cooked up by the combined brains of Doctor Otto Octavius and Harry Osborne, two of the brightest minds in this universe, is utterly idiotic.

Octavius is experimenting with fusion and wants to continue this work even after his most recent experiment left him permanently attached to four robotic limbs and killed his beloved wife. However, in order to do so, he has to acquire more tritium (read: nondescript MacGuffin) to fuel his reactor and the only person in the city with access to said tritium is Harry Osborne. Thus, they strike a deal; Harry will give Octavius all of the tritium he has in exchange for Octavius bringing him Spider-Man so that Harry can exact his revenge on the web-slinger.

From the word go, this plan is ludicrous. Harry tells Octavius that Peter Parker should know where Spidey is since he takes his pictures for the Bugle, but begs him not to hurt Peter. So what is the first thing Octavius does after this?

He throws an entire car at Peter Parker.

Sure, Peter has spidey senses and is able to dodge said car but Octavius has no idea that Peter is Spider-Man yet. Assuming Peter is just a normal kid, this crushes him and Octavius is left without any leads to Spider-Man and without any tritium, so how exactly was this plan ever going to work?