The original Spider-Man was a roller coaster action packed thrill ride; and this new chapter packs in more thrills and ratchets up the action. Tobey Maguire returns as Peter Parker who, bitten by a radioactive spider in the first film, gained amazing strength and agility which he has now mastered and uses to do good deeds.

The trouble is, all that saving people and stopping crime takes its toll on his personal life, from his schoolwork (he's now in college) to his relationship with Mary Jane Watson played again by Kirsten Dunst.

Tobey Maguire believes that, like the internationally popular comic book on which it is based, Spider-Man 2 presents a superhero that is really very human.

"I think what's interesting about this character and this movie and the choices that he has to go through aren't so much the extraordinary circumstances of him being Spider-Man and how that affects his personal life," he says. "I appreciate that, but what I like about it is that it really parallels a normal kid growing up and a kid's choices in terms of becoming an adult, how to live one's life, what choices to make and responsibility - being a giving person or contributing to society. Really, he's dealing with how to live a balanced life: how to do for himself as well as for others. I think his is a dramatic, conflicted path, but pretty basic."