The Amazing Spider-man 2

So I guess you’re wondering why I went from the Sam Raimi Spider-man series in chronological order but went straight to the Amazing Spider-man 2. I’ve seen The Amazing Spider-man 1 and eventually I want to do a review on that. But The Amazing Spider-man 2 was on a 16 hour flight I recently took. I thought I’d do my review on this movie and come back to the first one later.

This also brings up the next thing I want to talk about. As you hopefully know, I'm in South Africa for a study abroad trip. I've talked about this before and I said I would not be doing as many blog posts mainly because I don't have the time or the wifi to give you exactly what you guys want. Well my wifi position has changed just a tad. I won't promise that these will be consistent blog posts but this will allow me to do a couple to lighten the load of stuff I have to do later. Mainly because I've watched a good amount of movies and I have to write those reviews sooner rather than later. (My list in is this post.) 

But onto The Amazing Spider-man 2.

The movie picks up not long after the first film. Peter Parker (played by Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacey (played by Emma Stone) are graduating high school. Now Peter is hitting his stride as Spider-man However, he is haunted by the memories of Gwen’s father (played by Dennis Leary) who was killed in the last film. He feels as though he is betraying Captain Stacey’s last request by dating Gwen. And thus begins the back and forth of Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey breaking up, then getting back together again. This becomes a theme within the movie of Peter’s life going out of control and wanting a constant to be Gwen. However, he can’t because of the ghost of her father.

           

Peter has a number of problems in this film and the main one, at least from the trailers, is Electro (played by Jaime Fox). Beginning as Max Dillon, this villain is a scientist working for Oscorp. But of course he’s just a little bit nuts in the head. After being saved by Spider-man he becomes incredibly obsessed with the web slinging hero.

When an accident turns him into a power sucking blue dude, Electro is born and he’s searching for power.

To add onto that. You have the return of Harry Osborne (played by Dane DeHaan) to New York. Harry Osborne comes home to his father (played by Chris Cooper) who is dying. On his death bed, Norman reveals that he’s dying of a hereditary disease, a disease he passed onto Harry.

Harry soon takes on a mission to find a cure for his disease. A cure he believes is in the blood of Spider-man who he deduces was bitten by Oscorps special project spiders.

And to add onto that, you have Peter researching whatever he can on his parents who left him with his aunt and uncle when he was very young. Of course, there’s a mystery there that Peter has to discover.

And then you have the Rhino… He doesn’t have much of a point in this movie...

If you can’t tell, this movie is very dense with lots of plot points that they need to jump very quickly between throughout the entire movie. While its not incredibly horrible jumps, I give Marc Webb a little more credit than that, it still a little random at times.

For example, Electro will have a huge attack on the city. Peter will stop him and come back home, suddenly he’s super interested in discovering his parent’s secrets. And with a montage of Phillips and Phillips, suddenly we’re onto a new storyline.

Its not horribly random all the time, but it does have its random moments. The movie, again, is very convoluted with so many storylines that its hard to really develop these important characters, especially the villains who you soon start to realize are what future Sony films are going to be about. There’s a big set up for a Sinister 6 film in this film and unfortunately, the villains expected to be in that film are not developed at all in this one. The Rhino… well lets not talk about the Rhino.

           

I more want to talk about Harry Osborne. I have to give this movie credit, they took a character that was not introduced in the last film, and had to give him enough introduction to be likable and have a good enough chemistry with Andrew Garfield to create the illusion that these two were friends prior to this film. And they do a really good job at it. Andrew Garfield and Dane DeHaan have a really great chemistry and you really believe that they could be friends. Now unfortunately their friendship deteriorates at a speed that makes almost no sense whatsoever. But Harry Osborne was really well done in this film.

I can’t say he was better than James Franco but I still enjoyed him a helluva lot. Now it’s a very different style of movie than the Sam Raimi Spider-man films but I felt James Franco was developed better as a villain than the one in The Amazing Spider-man 2. Mainly because he turned so quickly and his development into a villain was so fickle and quick that suddenly he was evil… James Franco started off as a friend but you kind of knew that he was going to turn. I just thought it was done better by Sam Raimi.

           

Now something that can be said about this movie’s strengths is that the relationship between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey was just phenomenal. Garfield and Stone knock it out of the park just because they are such a good couple. I’m actually surprised they don’t date in real life. They just have a lot of times in the movie where they interact with each other and it’s just adorable.

Another great part of the film is the special effects. The fight scenes in this film are just spectacular.

Now that I’ve spoken on the good parts, I have to mention the things that just didn’t work.

Like I said before, the convoluted plotlines throughout made it so things could not be properly developed. I’ve also mentioned the poor development of a good strong villain. I’ve already mentioned that while Harry Osborne was probably the most developed out of them all, its strange that the one that was focused on the most was Electro and his character can be deduced to one word: Crazy. There’s really no method to his craziness, he’s just crazy. And the truth is, he doesn’t really have a plan. He wants to bring forth a world “without power, without hope, without Spider-man” So he decides to turn off the power. I don’t know there’s a whole thing on him being seen and getting the attention stolen from him by Spider-man. I don’t know, I just wasn’t impressed by Jaime Fox and the way Electro was written.

But all of these complaints can be overlooked if the movie was entertaining… and it was… sorta.

I mean I’m pretty much going to enjoy almost any comic book movie I see. There’s very few, modern, comic book films that I haven’t liked. Directors like Marc Webb are really figuring out the formula that just makes comic book movies fun.

Now is The Amazing Spider-man 2 fun? Yes. Is it really good? No. I’ve seen a lot of better comic book movies and especially since this movie came out around the same time as X-men Days of Future Past, its very hard to say this movie was very good. It wasn’t bad, I’ve just seen better ones.

There’s not much else to say about it. The Amazing Spider-man 2 was a decent comic book movie. Not great. Andrew Garfield still brings it as Peter Parker, Emma Stone still rocks it as Gwen Stacey, the two of them together are just phenomenal. However, the villains aren’t great. They’re not developed quite enough, especially since they’re working towards a Sinister 6 film. There are just too many plot lines and the story gets convoluted. The movie would be a lot better if it was less convoluted.

Hopefully I’ll be able to talk about a comparison between the new and the old series and what is good and bad about both. For right now though I’m more interested in letting you know my thoughts on this film. But what are yours? Have you seen The Amazing Spider-man 2? What did you think? Comment and Discuss below.

I’ll leave you with this. Here's the How it should have ended of the movie... maybe a little bit of a cop out but I have limited wifi so there's only so much I can do. Enjoy!