2014: The Year in Film: "The Amazing Spider Man 2" Review

The first Amazing Spider-Man flick was a pleasant and much-needed surprise. I am among the small but vocal population of nerds who didn't like the Sam Raimi Spider-Man flicks one bit, so it was refreshing to get a cinematic treatment of the character that was more in line with what I felt Spider-Man actually was all about. I won't get into it too much, but Tobey McGuire's dopey Peter Parker, the decision to have him actually shoot webs from his wrists and the setting of an all-white, cheesy 1940's esque New York City all combined to ruin the whole thing. The action in ASM was solid, but what really sold me on the film was Andrew Garfield and the film's treatment of Peter Parker and his relationship with Gwen Stacy. (Emma Stone) That shouldn't come as a huge surprise given Marc Webb's prior film, 500 Days of Summer, but in my honest opinion, ASM features some of the strongest and most honest character work of any superhero flick to date. The Spider-Man scenes were strong, but the draw of that film was certainly the human element, and the chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. (Who, surprise, surprise, got together after filming ASM) Compared to the possibly developmentally delayed Peter Parker played by McGuire and his complete lack of chemistry with Kristen Dunst, it was a revelation for true, old school spidey fans like myself.

Enter, Amazing Spider-Man 2. Prior to this flick's release it had been announced that Sony Pictures, the studio who owns the film rights to the Spider-Man portion of the Marvel Universe, had intentions to greatly expand their film treatment of Spider-Man and his villains and supporting characters in a clear effort to duplicate the success Marvel Studios has had in creating a cohesive film and TV universe.  ASM2 would be the film that would jump-start this effort, meaning that in addition to being a straight sequel to the first ASM film, ASM2 would be tasked with laying the groundwork for future films and greatly expanding the universe. ASM2 opens where the first film left off, with Peter Parker keeping New York safe as Spider-Man as the nefarious OsCorp continues to conduct the same type of biomedical experiments that led to the accident that gave Parker his powers. Another accident at OsCorp results in another person gaining superpowers, and Electro threatens New York as new threats bubble beneath the surface.

The Good: Andrew Garfield is pitch-perfect as Peter Parker (if way too old for the age that the character is supposed to be), and Garfield and Emma Stone simply crush all of their scenes. The treatment of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy's relationship by Marc Webb and the ASM series rescues these films from being mediocre, and are a million times better than anything involving Peter Parker from the Raimi Spider Man movies. The visuals and effects are pretty damn great, and all of the action sequences are well choreographed.



The Bad: unfortunately, because I love and have always loved Spider-Man, this flick is sort of an over-stuffed mess. The narrative is bloated and unfocused, and in an effort to drastically expand Spider-Man's world the film rushed way too many characters in, doing every single one of the new characters a disservice. The strongest part of the first ASM film was how-developed every single character was, from Gwen's dad to Dr. Connors and Uncle Ben, every character felt like a realized person. Here, we have a completely wasted Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn, and are immediately rushed into a criminally underused Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn, who becomes the Green Goblin approximately 9 minutes after he first appears. Jamie Foxx is a caricature as Electro, who exists mainly as a featureless menace to create cool action scenes. We are introduced to the Rhino for no reason other than they want to put Paul Giamatti into a future film, and all of the scenes featuring a nefarious conspiracy involving Peter's parents are utterly useless. This plot is bloated and wasted in the same way that Iron Man 2's was, only worse. Hell, the most (in)famous scene in all of Spider-Man's history feels like a thrown-in afterthought a midst all of the madness that is the film's third act.

Honestly, the only thing keeping this film from being as bad as something like the Ryan Reynolds abortion that is Green Lantern is the treatment of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, and the utter joy that the film takes in depicting Spider-Man web-slinging through NYC. It's a shame that such fine performances and a great treatment of one of comic's best characters is stuffed into a film that from a narrative aspect, is simply a mess. If you like Spider-Man, you'll dig this one, but you'll find yourself shaking your head at what could have been. There's a great movie in here somewhere, it's just wearing a fat suit full of OsCorp nonsense.

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone make it worth watching, but ultimately, this is a huge step backwards for Sony's attempts to build a worthwhile Spider-Man film universe.

6/10