To paraphrase Groucho Marx, "Spider-Man 2" may look like a summer special-effects popcorn movie and may sound like a summer special-effects popcorn movie, but don't let that fool you. "Spider-Man" IS a summer special-effects popcorn movie, but it's also much more.

	Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst reprise their roles for Spider-Man 2. Click photo for larger image. "Spider-Man 2" Rating: PG-13 for stylized action violence. Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina, James Franco. Director: Sam Raimi. Related articles Spider-Man's web of popularity spins wider than ever A timeline of the Amazing Spider-Man

It's a character study masquerading as an action movie, an examination of the kind of identity crisis we have all experienced, often as a teenager or young adult (like the characters in the movie).

In fact, the movie boasts one of the best screenplays since "L.A. Confidential," which was only the best movie of 1997. It is also that rarest of movie creations, a sequel better than its predecessor, which was only one of the top 10 movies of 2002.

Director Sam Raimi has come a long way from his days as the tongue-in-cheek horrormeister of "The Evil Dead" and its many follow-ups. In other words, he's gone through his own kind of identity change, which may explain why the movie's characters ring true even though Spider-Man springs from the realms of fantasy.

Some credit must go to Spidey's creators, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko of Marvel Comics, who found in their lead character a perfect analogy for the angst of puberty and adolescence and who placed him in a milieu so real that he's still going strong after 40 years.

But the Wall Crawler also has the chops to attract no less an artist than Michael Chabon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose works include "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh." He gets story credit along with Alfred Gough and Michael Millar. The actual screenwriter, Hollywood veteran Alvin Sargent, boasts such superior credits as "Paper Moon," "Julia" and "Ordinary People" along with the more recent "Unfaithful."

The notion of a dual personality (or "alter ego," as they call it in the comics) comes naturally to the concept of a super hero. Superman was also Clark Kent. Batman was also Bruce Wayne. Spider-Man is Peter Parker, a high school student bitten by a radioactive spider that gave him the creature's super strength, sticky appendages (good for scaling vertical surfaces) and web-spinning abilities. His obsession with fighting crime stems from the death of his Uncle Ben, which could have been prevented if Peter had used his new powers at the right moment.

In the new film, Spider-Man experiences the most unpleasant form of identity crisis when, while swinging between buildings high above Manhattan, he suddenly loses the ability to shoot a new "rope" of web juice from his wrists. After he manages to land without killing himself, the first thing he does is whip off his mask and stare at his wrists with a look of puzzlement and fear, wearing Peter Parker's face and Spider-Man's costume.

It is the first of several times he doffs his mask. But he's not the only one. All of the character in the movie wear at least a psychological mask of some sort, representing a dual identity, an emotional struggle between competing feelings, a search for who they really are and what they want from life.

Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), the girl Peter dares not love for fear she will be harmed by Spider-Man's enemies, gets the first shot of the movie, her face gracing a perfume ad. At one point, a disconsolate Peter walks by a fence covered with the ads, multiplying her image as if we were looking through a prism.

She is a budding actress (speaking of multiple roles) playing one of the women in "The Importance of Being Earnest," a play in which the women mistake the identities of the two male leads. She is herself of two minds about Peter, hoping he will declare his love for her but unwilling to wait too long.

Alfred Molina portrays Dr. Otto Octavius in "Spider-Man 2." Click photo for larger image.

Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) starts out with the best of intentions. His real name is Otto Octavius and he thinks he has developed a technique for atomic fusion that would create an inexhaustible energy source for the benefit of mankind. But the experiment goes awry and Octavius ends up being controlled by the artificial intelligence of his mechanical arms and legs, which were designed to let him handle the deadly element in his fusion experiment. The "good" doctor never entirely disappears, however.

Then there is Harry Osborn (James Franco), who hates Spider-Man for killing his father, whose other persona was the evil Green Goblin from the first "Spider-Man" film, and resents his best friend, Peter Parker, the only photographer who can get close to the Wall Crawler, for not revealing Spidey's real identity.

Raimi and Sargent weave all of these conflicts together into a compelling story as seamless as the computerized special effects. When Doc Ock rumbles through the streets and up the sides of buildings with his unwieldy appendages, it looks utterly natural. "Spider-Man 2" has none of the technological hiccups that were sometimes apparent in its predecessor.

Through it all, Maguire carries the film as masterfully as Spidey gripping Mary Jane while swinging her to safety. Even the opening action sequence, in which Peter dons the costume to beat a deadline in his civilian job delivering pizzas, speaks to young Parker's ironic inability to function in real life. He's unreliable at work, tongue-tied with Mary Jane, slacking off at school, seemingly unable to help Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) save her home from foreclosure, late on the rent for his own dingy apartment and accident-prone to boot.

The world seems to wipe its feet on this doormat, and after Spider-Man loses his powers intermittently, Peter seeks advice. Figure out who you are, what you want to be, he is told. Be willing to give up your dreams if you must.

This is serious stuff, especially in a movie featuring one man in a skintight costume and another wearing grotesque mechanical prostheses.

But "Spider-Man 2" doesn't suffer from an identity crisis. It knows exactly what it is, what it wants to say and how to do so in a manner that will keep the popcorn fans happy, too. This is one movie that can be all things to all people.