Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, and Sam Raimi all return to their proper positions in Spider-Man 2, and the end result, much like the first film, is decidedly mixed. On the positive side there is the character of Spider-Man himself, who remains the greatest superhero ever created. There is also the continuing story arc of the series, which remains tied to the first outing, but expands upon the story by bringing in the brilliantly conceived Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) for a dose of villainy. And the negative? Once again, sadly, the flood of CGI necessary to bring Spidey to life.

The oft-grumbled complaint about computer-generated effects is that they routinely out themselves as just that--computer-generated effects. And though each year brings improvements (this go-around, Spider-Man looks far better than he did just two years ago), there remains, and there will always remain, another major pitfall for filmmakers who rely on fabricated help: The almighty power of CGI gives them far too much freedom. Case in point, Sam Raimi, who has never been one of our more reserved directors. As in the first film, Raimi has taken the massive budget that Spider-Man allows (and necessitates) to overwhelm his audience with visual trickery. Early on in Spider-Man 2, Spidey not only swings through traffic in pursuit of a villain, he swings through a sliver of a space between a moving semi's cab and cargo. Why? Because it looks cool--and isn't that what everyone's paying for?

If so, we shouldn't be (though we undoubtedly will). Going into a Spider-Man film we surely expect the spectacular, but even the spectacular has limits. All films, even fantasy ones, need to at least touch upon reality. It can be the lightest of touches, but there must be substance there for us to grab onto--otherwise, why should we bother watching? In Raimi's vision of Spider-Man, however, his normally manic camera joins with CGI to create a work that is often completely fraudulent. All the flourish and tomfoolery--the camera swooping down and around from impossible angles, the blurs between digital and live action--force you to feel detached from the entire enterprise. There is only so much CGI we can take, after all, before what we're watching ceases to engross us, and there are entire stretches of Spider-Man 2 that not only lost my interest, but made me feel like I was squandering time. Which, to be sure, is death to any film.

What is perhaps most infuriating about the Spider-Man films so far is the fact that they've wasted a splendid story. Unlike Superman, who has always been a colossal bore, Spidey has always been more human than hero, which makes him far more endearing. Superman has no limitations beyond a chunk of green rock; Spider-Man bleeds and errs and loses friends--in short, he is what a superhero should be. Spider-Man, and now Spider-Man 2, unfortunately, are often nearly everything they shouldn't be. BRADLEY STEINBACHER

De-Lovely
dir. Irwin Winkler
Opens Fri July 2.

Played with characteristic swagger by the great Kevin Kline, Cole Porter is a great songwriter and prodigious homosexual with a beautiful and rich wife (Ashley Judd) who not only tolerates, but encourages, his same-sex dalliances. This hyper-liberal approach to marriage is only one of the film's flawed conceits. Another far more damning one is that Porter, either moments before or after death, is watching his life unfold as a stage show in rehearsal, guided by guardian angel/director Jonathan Pryce, in the thankless, interlocutory role typically reserved for British actors in biography movies (cf. Anthony Hopkins in Chaplin, et al.).

De-Lovely is perfumed with preciousness, and ultimately suffers from the self-consciousness of its Hollywood gloss, as well as the difficult-to-swallow progressiveness of its characters. (Oddly enough, the sub rosa insinuation of Porter's homosexuality in the 1946 biopic Night and Day rings much truer to the life one imagines a gay man leading in the '20s and '30s.) Still, the fine performances of Kline and Judd diminish the film's more troublesome liberties. And oh, yes, the songs are among the greatest ever written. Never mind that many are sung by a stunt cast of pop semi-luminaries like Elvis Costello, Mick Hucknall, and Sheryl Crow. (The only real travesty is Alanis Morrisette's noxious, syllable-grinding rendition of "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love.") When Kline sings--like Porter, his voice is thin, which makes his performances all the more compelling--the emotional complexity of these seemingly simple ditties comes vividly to life. SEAN NELSON

The Clearing
dir. Pieter Jan Brugge
Opens Fri July 2.

At the opening of the film, two men are shown to be living very different lives. Arnold Mack (Willem Dafoe) eats cereal for breakfast and is obviously just scraping by, while Wayne Hayes (Robert Redford) eats a fancy breakfast by the pool. Because Redford is the bigger star, the focus shifts to him and his family, even if Dafoe's character is more interesting--but we'll get to that in a bit. Wayne has breakfast with his wife, Eileen (Helen Mirren), but the spark has obviously gone from their marriage. Meanwhile, Arnold has taken the subway to get to his car, which he drops off at the airport before taking a bus to Wayne's house. As Wayne pulls out of the driveway, Arnold talks his way into Wayne's fancy car and kidnaps him. The story then splits into two timelines, one following Wayne as he is taken to the titular clearing and the other following Eileen in the days after her husband's disappearance.

When it comes right down to it, Arnold's crime is very impressive. It's quite complex, very well thought out, and goes off without a hitch. If the movie were about the crime, then Arnold would have been the main character. Instead this is an art-house film where the kidnapping triggers different ruminations on how hard it is to keep a marriage fresh, therefore Wayne is the central character. It's revealed that his marriage went through some serious rough patches; their children don't think he would have had the balls to leave her, but by saying that they also know how unhappy they sense the marriage to be. Then the FBI agent moves into the house, and he admits to Eileen that an investigation into his own marriage "wouldn't be pretty." It's all very depressing. What a waste of a slick, well-executed kidnapping. ANDY SPLETZER

America's Heart and Soul
dir. Louis Schwartzberg
Opens Fri July 2.

America's Heart and Soul is a coffee-table movie. From its generic, patronizing title to its sound-bite, human-interest-story segments, it is meant to be looked at, its images and basic ideas admired, but never really watched or studied. Disney's reintroduction to the documentary is a kind of catalog illustration of right-wing talking points, filled with all the best and coolest-sounding things about cute, plucky poor people who never let adversity get them down, and artists/hobbyists who perform the kinds of activities that appeal to the SUV crowd. Director Louis Schwartzberg never rests on one subject too long, giving the audience just enough time to register a brief, one-note colorization of each person. The film is supposedly about (to use an oft-repeated phrase) "common folks," as in a totally apolitical enterprise, but in recent months it has basically declared itself to be a political organization, and, although they would prefer not to admit it, redefining "America" is a highly political act--whether or not any actual politicians make their way into the film. So what is America? It's happy, Christian, and overwhelmingly white. Minorities do occasionally make an appearance: African Americans play music or work in churches, Latinos tango, and Native Americans talk for 30 seconds before the film cuts them off for another wacky artist who works in explosions or makes animals out of scrap metal. The film and its subjects mention the word "freedom" a lot, which in the context of this movie seems to have something to do with either rock climbing or airplanes. Basically, each micro-segment only includes what can be spun to fit within Disney's version of the American Dream. Some of the subjects are incredible people, and they deserve better than this self-congratulatory whitewashing of their lives. ADAM HART