The Good: Overall
I can’t say there’s too much to like about Marc Webb’s follow up to The Amazing Spiderman; I can say that it’s
not all bad and even fun, at times. What works about this film is its sense of
nostalgia, the suit is closer to the comics then it’s ever been, Peter Parker
himself is very reminiscent of the comic character fans have grown to love, finally
this film is uniquely a Spiderman film, not a generic superhero.
Andrew Garfield is a good Spiderman, but not the
best Peter Parker. He really understands the duality of the character, his
moral struggles and his need to do the right thing while still struggling with the
characters selfish teenage nature. Garfield is great at delivering the one-liners
his fight scenes need to stay fresh. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the same
grasp on the character when out of costume; Garfield just can’t quite be the
nerd Parker needs to be. But, this is the good section so let’s talk about what
makes the non-web-slinging scenes work, Emma Stone. She is a nearly flawless Gwen
Stacy; Stone is an actress that can raise the level of any script she works
with and that’s certainly the case with Stacy. One of the most tragic and
iconic characters in the Marvel universe is brought to life with grace, glamour,
humor, compassion by Stone (and it doesn’t hurt that her chemistry with real
life boyfriend Garfield is off the charts.)
A final shout out goes
to the city of New York; it’s very common for a film to set in NYC, but not
very often is the city featured as beautifully as it is here. Amazing Spiderman 2 really takes it time
in showing us all sides of the big apple, from beautiful skylines to dark
allies and from quite moments in the cement jungle to terrifying crowd scenes straight
out your worst nightmare.
The Bad: Sadly,
the bad outweighs the good for this not-so-amazing sequel; diving deeper into
what doesn’t work with Spidy misadventure we find the rest of the cast,
director and writers. Above I mentioned both Garfield and Stone as giving good performance
and creating good characters. That is sadly where it ends. I can’t say that any
of what Jamie Foxx (Electro), Dane DeHaan (Harry Osborn), Paul Giamatti (The
Rhino), Colm Feore (Donald Menken), and Sally Field (Aunt May) bring to the
screen is worth the price of admission. All the characters except for Parker and
Stacy feel extremely one-note, they serve a purpose to the plot, but not a purpose
to the film; it’s hard to care about characters like these. However, even the
best of actor can only do so much with a poor script.
Alex Kurtzman, Robert
Orci, Jeff Pinker, and James Vanderbilt are the scribes behind this logjam of
ideas. Woven into the piece are at least 4 messy, undeveloped subplots that
could have easily been their own film. There is simply not time to deal with
all of Peter’s daddy issues, all of Harry Osborn’s daddy issues, all of Gwen’s
daddy… well you get my point. Besides everyone having enough glitches to keep
Sigmund Freud in business for years, the characters are make giant logic leaps
and assumptions that leave gaping plot holes. On top of this *WARNING NERD RANT
COMING* Amazing Spiderman 2
takes the heart and soul of Peter Parker and tosses it out the window. Uncle
Ben gives Peter his drive, his purpose, his mantra “with great power comes
great responsibility;” But with this series Peter is so caught up with his dead
parents, Gwen’s dead father (Dennis Leary who died in the first film), and his never-ending
string of dreadful father figures that he completely disregards the death and
words of his Uncle Ben and makes the little spider-fan in me cry.
But I can’t completely lay
the blame on the screenwriters because many of the films issues are a total
team effort. What’s holding this film series back? Director Marc Webb is my
current answer (which is sad because 500
Days of Summer – his one non-spidy feature length effort—is an amazing film).
Amazing Spiderman 2 is inconsistently
shot; it ranges between beautifully composed shots and shots that came straight
from an iPhone (credit to Jeff for that analogy). Even in dialogue scenes it
seemed the crew couldn’t be bothered to set up two quality shots, instead we
get a film full of great mashed up with rushed and lazy. As if the lack of
quality shots weren’t enough the film is all over the place in tone. Comedy and
drama can be mixed beautifully, but here they are not. The film gives us some
of the campiest moments in all of superhero film history mixed in with some of
the heaviest and most daring moments in superhero film history and it simply
falls flat.
I can’t leave this
section without mentioning the atrocious score. This film might have received an
overall higher score from me if it was not for the his mix of electronic
sounds, orchestral tones and vocal whispers that motivate our villains (I’m not
joking that happens)
The Random: Tying
up a few odds and ends.
·
The film is up
and down to say the least, but if you can make it to the final third it’s an
enjoyable final 45 minutes.
· We are clearly working towards more Spiderfilms, with Sinister Six being the end game. We may be in for a long ride with this franchise (which is solely around so that Sony can keep the property and not have it revert back to Marvel and Disney), but is it a good idea to wrap an entire franchise around the villains of the universe?
· ***SPOILER POINT DON’T READ IF YOU’VE NOT SEEN THE FILM*** I’m kind of surprised by the internet’s reaction to the fate of Gwen Stacy. It’s a pretty basic storyline in the Spiderman universe; one of the most famous arcs in all of comic history is The Death of Gwen Stacy, so to see come to life on the screen was a joy, since it was the part of the film that worked the best. I know it’s a risk to kill off a main character, but this one should have been one that Spiderfans should have seen coming. ***END SPOILER SECTION***
· The Amazing Spiderman franchise is 0 for 2 vs. Sam Rami’s Spiderman franchise, but they have some good pieces in place, Garfield being one of them, and it shouldn’t be too hard to be better than Spiderman 3… wait… maybe that’s all this franchise needed! Get past these first two films and really hit your stride.
· We are clearly working towards more Spiderfilms, with Sinister Six being the end game. We may be in for a long ride with this franchise (which is solely around so that Sony can keep the property and not have it revert back to Marvel and Disney), but is it a good idea to wrap an entire franchise around the villains of the universe?
· ***SPOILER POINT DON’T READ IF YOU’VE NOT SEEN THE FILM*** I’m kind of surprised by the internet’s reaction to the fate of Gwen Stacy. It’s a pretty basic storyline in the Spiderman universe; one of the most famous arcs in all of comic history is The Death of Gwen Stacy, so to see come to life on the screen was a joy, since it was the part of the film that worked the best. I know it’s a risk to kill off a main character, but this one should have been one that Spiderfans should have seen coming. ***END SPOILER SECTION***
· The Amazing Spiderman franchise is 0 for 2 vs. Sam Rami’s Spiderman franchise, but they have some good pieces in place, Garfield being one of them, and it shouldn’t be too hard to be better than Spiderman 3… wait… maybe that’s all this franchise needed! Get past these first two films and really hit your stride.
Overall Rating/Recommendation: B-. Be like Peter
Parker, save the world show up late, enjoy the end.
