Yeah, same to you, buddy.

I wanted to like Spiderman 2 better than the original. Not that I hated Spiderman. Its story was bland and uninspired, but it had terrific action scenes and an offbeat humor so it got a moderate pass from me. This time around I knew that novelist Michael Chabon was working on the script, so I figured the story would be up to snuff and our summer would be graced with a kick-ass superhero movie.

And the story, worked on not only by Chabon but by the talented Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, creators of TV’s Smallville, is better. But where are the thrilling action scenes and offbeat humor? The former have been skimped on and the latter is almost completely missing. Well, I guess we can’t have everything.

Which is the same conclusion that Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) comes to early in the movie. Fighting crime by night while going to college and holding down a couple of jobs by day is proving too much for Peter. On top of that, he starts losing his web-shooting mojo and there ain’t no Viagra for that. Peter decides to ditch the red tights and be a normal guy.

Fedora, dark glasses. Great disguise. Except, you know, for the huge metal tentacles attached to his back.

Meanwhile, another genius scientist jumps on the insane train after messing around with dangerous technology. (Clean, renewable energy!?! Someone shut this guy down!) With a quartet of mechanized tentacles strapped to his back he becomes Doc Ock. (Handy, don’t you think, that his name was Dr. Octavius to start out with?) Then there’s Peter’s all too requited love for Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) and his turbulent relationship with his best friend Harry Osborne (James Franco), who has graduated from whiny rich kid to ambitious businessman/mean drunk.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Trouble is, once the story was developed the screenwriting duties fell to Alvin Sargent, and he just doesn’t have the feel for the material that the first movie’s David Koepp did. The speeches, and there are too many of them, are clunky and the movie is sorely missing a sense of humor. Throw in the pointless subplot about Peter’s quirky landlord and Aunt May’s tendency to prattle and preach until I wanted to smack her, and the movie got a bit tedious. Spidey shouldn’t be tedious.

One thing I really liked in the original was the joy with which director Sam Raimi infused the action scenes. There’s some of that this time around, but not nearly enough. I missed flying with Spiderman through New York City. Granted, Peter’s getting used to his powers and wouldn’t use them with the same glee as before, but I wanted some of that jubilation back.

Overall, I guess I like this Spiderman about the same as the last one, but for completely opposite reasons. It’s like last time we just had chocolate, this time only peanut butter. Hopefully on Spiderman 3 we’ll get two great tastes that taste great together.

Gorilla Pants rating: 2.5 out of 4 bananas