Amazon.com What's a woebegone wall-crawler to do? Arachnid-powered superteen Peter Parker's all-too-human foibles are never far from the heart of director Sam Raimi's second installment of the Spider-Man saga, giving it an emotional resonance that sets it smartly apart from its summer blockbuster competition. But while Raimi and star Toby McGuire help emotionally ground the film, its stunning CGI effects -- and this robust, aggressive orchestral score by Danny Elfman -- insure we never forget this is no mere soap opera. The composer returns with a vengeance to the larger-than-life, crowd-pleasing sensibility of his acclaimed work on Batman and its sequel, though he occasionally seasons it with sparing dashes of the post-modern flirtations of his Hulk score. Elfman conjures his formula masterfully, bookending a suitably moody, rhythmically anxious new theme for Dr. Octopus with a brassy reprise of villainy-past on "The Goblin Returns." Though leavened by more emotionally bright passages, it's a score largely dominated by the dark, brooding comic book melodramatics that are the favorite of so many Elfman acolytes. --Jerry McCulley
