Spider-Man 2

Oh dear, my first venture to the cinema in, what, over a year. Always a disappointment, always. I admit not to having seen the first instalment of this franchise, though frankly if you see the trailer and making of then you've pretty much seen the film, so everything made sense to me. But what appalling CGI. How could they blow $54 million on making it look like a second rate PlayStation game? When will they realise that you can't yet substitute real actors with these avatars without looking stupid. Why bother to have the actors at all? And when will someone in the FX community get round to reading about Newton's laws of motion? Especially the third which may as well never have been invented. No you can't rip off a vault door with superhuman AI arms without ripping your spine out, crushing your torso and bending your legs in two. Really these things irritate me beyond anything.

And the false science stuff was too far from believability. Creating a fusion sun in a warehouse room without any heat protection? Come on. And then dousing the sun in the Hudson? Right. And then these AI appendages – where did they get their power? And if they are impervious to any heat, why did they fizzle and splutter in water? Stupid, stupid stupid!!

Tobey Maguire was disappointing too. Maybe it was not his fault. I didn't really feel the loneliness and isolation of the character which I would have thought is essential to the character's feelings of being different. And how come he is so poor yet his best friends are an actress model and the son of a very rich industrialist?

The dialogue was pretty bad, especially the love scenes, but does one expect anything better these days? The photography was flat and uninteresting, and as for the special effects... Why so bad?

Let's try and find some good things. The scene in the launderette was sly and funny, when Spidey's suit runs in the wash and streaks his underwear red and blue. Where the film did work emotionally was after Spidey stops the elevated train and loses his mask – the moment where the common people carry him to safely and notice it's just a boy. But by far the best and most joyful scene was the Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head sequence. Yes they actually used the original recording from Butch Cassidy! And yes it was very funny and touching, almost a hommage to Tobey. The freeze frame of Maguire's bespectacled face at the end was really very good. Yet this two minute sequence was the only part I actively enjoyed out of the whole film. And none of the reviews I've read have mentioned this sequence. Am I somehow different from all the rest?