When filmmakers leave footage on the cutting-room floor, there’s usually a pretty good reason it never made it to the big screen – it just wasn’t all that great. And when a movie makes $800 million worldwide, there’s also a pretty good reason – it was great. So director Sam Raimi hardly needed to go back and tinker with “Spider-Man 2,” but the chance to make even more cash from the latest round of Spidey-hype must have been irresistible.
For something that is utterly inessential, “2.1” actually has its moments. It’s just that few of them are in the new cut of the movie. The eight additional minutes of footage mostly go toward expanding a subway-car fight between Doc Ock and Spidey, while some supposedly add “depth” to scenes like Peter Parker’s birthday party.
The really good stuff is on the bonus disc, which does an excellent job of showing how computer-generated
images are compiled from dozens of shots, miscellaneous scraps and the animators’ ingenuity. Spend an hour or
so watching their various featurettes and “animation breakdowns” and you’ll understand why they won 2005’s Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects.
And if you can’t wait a week for the real deal in theaters, there’s also a 150-second sneak-peek of “Spider-Man 3.”