Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 didn’t just swing into theaters in 2004, but cemented itself as one of the best superhero movies ever made. Twenty-one years later, it remains a masterclass in balancing spectacle with deeply human storytelling. Rewatching it now, I can’t help but hope that Tom Holland’s upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day borrows from the same playbook.
Raimi’s film wasn’t just about supervillains and web-slinging—it was about Peter Parker as a person: broke, exhausted, guilty, and barely keeping his life together. That emotional core, combined with thrilling, easy-to-follow action and a layered villain, is what makes Spider-Man 2 not only one of the best Spider-Man movies, but as Roger Ebert praised, “heroically human.” It’s a quality the MCU sometimes overlooks, and one Holland’s next outing could greatly benefit from.
