Spider-Man 2 (2004) Or Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)?

[IAmStripped]

Spider-Man 2 (2004):

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021):

Which Spidey Movie do you personally prefer and why?

Sorry if threads like this usually aren’t allowed here, but I wanted to post this thread anyways.

As much as I like No Way Home (and consider it the best Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2), I’m still going with Spider-Man 2 (2004) on this one because Spider-Man 2 is still not only my absolute favorite movie of the Spidey movies, but it’s also still to this day my absolute favorite comic book movie of all time. I even have the main theatrical Spider-Man 2 movie poster on my wall because I still love the movie so much.

 

[Frontier]

NWH is a solid movie but it just has nowhere near the impact, pathos, and verisimilitude of Spider-Man 2.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

So I have heard a lot of the complaints about No Way Home; the weird pauses when watching it for one-selves left in for the audience cheer moments the studio knew would be there for crowds in theaters, the "you can tell this was made during the pandemic because of how very few crowd shots there are for something that should have much more onlookers" feel of the cinematography; the "there should be a million other ways this should have gone once you bring in magic and alternate realities" points about using Dr. Strange and the angle of the multiverses; the clear disgust Kevin Feige and others at Marvel had when having to associate with the Venom movies thus instead of properly using Eddie Brock in the movie had him shoved into an end credits tease to shove him back into his universe (now granted the writers also couldn't fit him in but I have a feeling they would have more if it weren't for the friction between Marvel and Sony) and yeah likely other issues but at the end of the day, I don't care; to me the Spider-Verse movies are the best in terms of sheer quality Spider-Man films, but if we're talking live action, No Way Home is so far the best overall Spider-man movies. It has the best hitting drama, I care about all the characters and their relationships, the comedy is on point and you can really tell it is being respectful to what came before and trying forge this new path for Tom Holland's Peter Parker in it's own way that hopefully Brand New Day picks up the baton properly for.

And yes between the two, I do feel it is clearly better then Spider-Man 2. Which is the best of the Raimi movies but... honestly in terms of overall entertainment isn't even my second favorite live action Spider Man movie. Like I prefer Homecoming or even Amazing Spider-Man more. Why? Because though Spider-Man 2 does have a lot of really satisfying elements that work overall... man does that "Spider-Man No more" section of the story drag on. I do wonder if Brand New Day will have the opposite problem of "when is Peter going to realize he NEEDS to still be Peter Parker and have these connections to be the best Spider Man he can be" but I have confidence they won't because the MCU movies don't let him stew as much in the melodrama as the Maguire films. And yeah Spider-Man IS supposed to be a series with melodrama that really leans on those personal relationships and spending a fair amount of time dumping on the character but as even comic fans will admit there's a tendency for the writers to dump on Peter Parker too much to the point you don't want to read the material anymore and I get some of that in the second act of this movie. Plus this also really enforced the idea a lot of studios still have of sequels going "okay we had the character get their powers and really seemingly master them in the first but what if for some reason they lose or don't want to use them in the next movie and have to rediscover what it means to be a hero" like that's an arc on it's own. I guess Superman II pioneered that first but at least Clark gave up his powers to be with the woman he loves. Here a lot of time is spent just on Peter and Mary Jane going back and forth and really only getting together at the end and honestly their chemistry is not really that good. Like people bag on Emma Stone in TASM films or Zendaya in the MCU films about their characters even though like Gwen or Michelle have WAYYYYYYYYYYY more chemistry with their peter Parkers then MacGuire and Dunst did. You guys seriously trying to tell me the "there's someone else"/'If you punch me I'll bleed" bits really sell the connection these two have and are worth the slog of Peter just going through his basic life now while still getting dumped on...

Okay I don't want to be too mean as it's clear people still adore Spider-Man 2. And it's not like X-Men 2 where it's one of my least favorite of the franchise and just go "you clearly grew up with this that's why you like it the most" as there is a lot of merit to 2... in MY opinion I do feel people remember a lot of the best moments (mostly revolving around Doc Ock) and feel that elevates the movie more then it does, but fair enough if you feel different. For me though No Way Home clears Spider Man 2 easily as the better movie and I would take a million of those awkward pauses for applause over that overly long Aunt May speech Romsemary Harris gives about being a hero... okay Harris looks a lot more like especially original aunt May but my god does Marisa Tomei work so much better as the character her death was incredibly tragic and hit so hard while I feel if Harris had a death in the movie it wouldn't as she would drag it out 5 times longer then it should have been because of how they wrote her Aunt May... okay enough complaining about 2 said my piece and leaving it at that.

 

[Pooky]

I know I’m in a pretty small minority but I really didn’t enjoy Spider-Man 2 back in 2004. I’ve come to respect it more following a rewatch in the last 10 years or so (and as its idiosyncrasies have become more appealing in a world of IMO increasingly boilerplate superhero films), but it’s still not a particular favourite of mine and I still prefer the first film.

That said I'm not really a fan of the Jon Watts films. They’re not bad movies, but their style, tone and humour is very much not my thing. I probably enjoyed No Way Home the most of the three, but I would still go with Spider-Man 2.