IF GREAT melodramas are priced by their villains, then Spider-Man 2 has tagged the most lucrative cad in film history. His name is Dr Otto Octavius and he is played quite brilliantly by Alfred Molina. He is half-mad scientist and half-metal: he has four lengthy steel tentacles grafted to his spinal cord, and I’m not quite sure how he manages to stand up while those crazy 20ft limbs light his cigars, mix his drinks, and strangle his foes.

That’s the comic glory of Sam Raimi’s sequel: he dresses his villains in special effects such as fur coats from Harrods. Octavius is a preposterous invention, yet he’s one of the most remarkable comic strip Marvels that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created. The latter artist is in his seventies; the former is in his eighties. Which might explain the existential 1950s gloom that haunts Spider-Man 2, but not the $256,438,326 (£138,234,000) that the film grossed in 12 days, with most of the world’s pocket money yet to come.

It’s a far superior adventure to the original Spider-Man, not simply because it tosses more cars through restaurant windows, but because it scrutinises that twilight zone between fallible nerd and web-slinging hero with a wry smile.

That takes nerve. But this much is clear: Doc Ock, as the tabloids crown him, is in an ugly hurry to grab the future, and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man is in no position to deny him. That doesn’t stop these souped-up titans from throwing most of New York’s most recognisable fixtures at each other at regular intervals.

Spider-Man 2 is a mind-boggling piece of showboating, and the most rigorous fairground ride of the year. But Spider-Man is a weirdo. Tobey Maguire reprises his role as the conflicted superhero with the relish of a star who’s been ordered to swash out the school cubicles. His pale face is a permanent crumple. His blue eyes are puddles of gloom. He is sacked from crap jobs on a daily basis. His doormat poise as Peter Parker would tempt a nun to thump him; his impulsive life-saving exploits as Spider-Man look corny and naff. “Hey kids, no playing in the streets,” he barks, after plucking a couple of infants from under a speeding truck. “Get Lost” screams a headline from the Daily Bugle.

Is it any wonder that he starts firing blanks? Our local web-weaver starts slipping from walls. He can’t shoot dental floss from his wrists. His landlord wants to evict him. The love of his life (Kirsten Dunst) dumps him. She searches for a sexual response from Maguire like a doctor with an orthopaedic hammer. I have not seen a heroine in such a lofty sulk since Miss Havisham cancelled her wedding.

The angst is the refreshing and old-fashioned point of the film. While Spider-Man procrastinates about duty and identity, Doc Ock rips the doors off bank vaults and trundles up the sides of New York skyscrapers. He tramples over downtown traffic in a trenchcoat with his wicked and wonderful metal snakes, and obsesses about nuclear fusion like a schoolboy pondering E=mc2.

Needless to say the two superheroes beat the hell out of each other, and their fight on top of a subway train is one of the most exquisitely visceral slices of action I’ve ever seen. Alarmingly, Spider-Man is unmasked. “He’s just a kid. About the same age as my son,” says one stunned commuter. It’s a sublime moment of nudity in a decidedly odd blockbuster. I was pleasantly surprised.

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