I saw Spider-Man 2 Friday evening. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Funny, emotional, thrilling, finely acted—great fun.

The best, most exciting scene in the film, though, hands-down more visceral, throat-grabbing, and slickly directed and edited than any other, looked and felt as if it had been dropped in from another movie. This was the jaw-dropping scene in which Dr. Octavius's tentacles attack an operating room full of doctors and nurses. As far as I could tell, the scene contained little if any actual gore, but its tone was absolutely identical to the splatstick of Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy. Sort of a tribute to his own past.

I grinned from ear to ear, astonished, during that scene. I gasped when it was over, remembering I needed to breathe. Clearly Sam Raimi now has the ability to direct any sort of project he wants—but it's easy to tell which sort he loves best. Maybe he'll give us that kind of manic thrill at feature length again someday.