Spider-Man 2: Totally Spider-Man

Background

Back in the flurry of Movie books, we seem to have missed one out: "Totally Spider-Man". Printed and bound in Spain, published in the UK, this was probably a UK only distribution. Thick hardback cover, 9" x 11.25", glossy full-color pages all round. As the cover says... 96 action-packed pages! Let's open it up and see what's inside.

Story Details

Inside there's a re-telling of the story, illustrated with big movie stills. The text is large print, and simple language, giving a very basic summary. It doesn't appear to be identical to any of the other books, I believe it's written specifically for this one - but don't expect any great insights... this is a dumbed-down version.

Interspersed among the story-retelling are jokes and puzzles. The jokes are all taken from Spider-Man 2: The Joke Book, and are exceptionally un-funny. Not sure where the puzzles come from, but they're decidedly uninspiring also.

General Comments

Superb production quality, rather mediocre content. It's a fine-looking book which would be a much-appreciated present to a pre-teen year-old Spider-Fan or Fanette. It's glossy movie tie-in, designed to be pretty and to evoke memories of the film among kids. In that sense, it probably succeeds.

Overall Rating

Just because I found it lacking in substance doesn't mean it doesn't hit the target market. I'm going to give it a slightly sub-par 2.5 webs.