Spider-Man 2 Revisited: 5 Criticisms Nobody Ever Admits

Spider-Man 2 tackles the Spider-Man: No More storyline from the comics to genuinely moving results. The entire film is about Peter's struggle to balance the life he wants to live with the responsibility he feels burdening him as Spider-Man, and so having him get a taste of life without Spider-Man in the second act only for him to realize he can never truly be free of it by the film's end is a bittersweet and heartbreaking character beat, one that only Raimi could deliver in such an elegant fashion.

However, that's not to say the arc doesn't hit a few speed bumps along the way. Chiefly, the scene in which Aunt May gives Peter a pep talk at her garage sale about why she really, really wishes Spider-Man would come back.

It's a sweet enough scene and Rosemary Harris genuinely does not get enough praise for how wonderful she is as Aunt May in these films, but the writing here is so on the nose that it's painful. She's practically winking at and nudging the audience as she not-so-subtly guilt trips Peter about how he needs to be Spider-Man again, to the point that not only is it blatantly obvious she knows he's Spider-Man but also that it becomes nigh unbelievable to buy that Peter somehow doesn't seem to clock any of this.

It's an intimate moment between two of the series' best character that should have been quietly affecting but instead is handled with all the subtlety of a bulldozer.