The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

Released in 2014 under the direction of Marc Webb ("(500) Days of Summer") on a budget of $200 million with distribution from Sony Pictures; "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" is the sequel to the rebooted 2012 release "The Amazing Spider-Man" based off of the popular comic book character by Marvel Comics from 1962. Since then, the character has become an iconic staplemark of American pop culture to rival the likes of Superman. But Spider-Man's greatest foe is not Doctor Octopus, Venom or The Sandman, but Hollywood studios. Since 1979, Spider-Man struggled to make his way onto the big screen from Hollywood studios fighting back and forth between each other for ownership of the Spider-Man license, directors like Roger Corman, Tobe Hooper, and James Cameron all at one point during the 20 year ownership battle set direct the project, with Cameron being the closest to having a completed screenplay. The license was eventually laid claim to by Columbia Pictures, who immediately got to work to produce what would later be 2002's 3rd biggest hit, "Spider-Man," with "Evil Dead" director Sam Raimi behind the camera. Raimi followed up the 2002 hit with two sequels before arguments with Columbia led to Raimi abandoning "Spider-Man 4," forcing Sony Pictures, the company that owned Columbia Pictures, to reboot the franchise to avoid losing the license, resulting in the 2012 reboot to keep the license fresh. So, with a new franchise available to them, Sony produced the sequel. How does it hold up compared to Sam Raimi's 2004 sequel?

Plot: 

Taking place after the events of the previous movie, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) graduates from High School while balancing his life as the super-hero Spider-Man. But Peter finds a lot on his plate lately, from making discoveries about his father Richard Parker (Campbell Scott) and his involvement with the evil company Oscorp, run by the dying Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper) whose death leaves his son Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) the CEO position of the company while he tries to find a cure for his condition from Spider-Man's blood. To add to that, a lowly Oscorp technician with an obsession over Spider-Man named Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) suffers an accident that turns his body into electrical humanized form he calls "Electro" that can generate electricity as well as absorb it. With all the villains plaguing him, Peter worries about the safety of his on-again, off-again girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Ellen Page) while he still suffers from Dennis Leary popping up to just stand around and stare at Peter at the worst moments.

What's that you say? That sounds really confusing and muddled? Why yes, yes it is and if you figured that out even before I mentioned it then congratulations, you figured out what the biggest problem with the movie is: it's narrative. The story itself isn't very well composed, in fact, it suffers from the same issues that plagued "Spider-Man 3," introducing new characters all while trying to keep old characters in the narrative and give them something to do. This wouldn't be a problem if the characters were better written, but the movie can only introduce so many subplots to try and keep the audience interesting. Probably the worst subplot being the Richard Parker subplot, why? Because It can be summed up like this: "Why did my dad leave me?" "Your dad was a traitor Peter!" "What?! No way!" "Hey Peter, I'm a recording of your dad, I'm not a traitor, Oscorp, the big obviously evil company is evil!" "No way! I totally didn't see that coming!" Conflict resolved and has no meaningful impact to the ultimate conclusion of the plot. I also thought the whole "break-up just to get back together" conflict with Peter and Gwen could have been omitted as well, it's just a pointless conflict that wastes our time because, unless you read the comics, you KNOW what'll happen to Gwen Stacy. I'd say spoiler alert, but frankly, you'd already figured it out by now.

Why am I bringing these criticism to the forefront? Because the movie should have spent more of it's time giving the villains more time to establish what is going on in their heads. Electro is given some scenes to establish he wants to be noticed….and that's it. We don't see how he adapts or figures out his powers, we don't see the thought process he's going through, it's just "I hate you now Spider-Man because you forgot my name!" Harry Osborn was the closest to being a fleshed-out  character and yet his big transformation from nice guy to Flying Werewolf Dude is rushed just to get all the characters where they need to be. You want to talk about lazy writing? The ending of the movie is Spider-man battling the Rhino, the character who has appeared in all the trailers and was bragged to being in the movie and the movie cuts to the end credits before we get to see anything happen. I know they want to set up for the next sequel, but come on, that's just lazy writing there.

Characters:

To be honest, nobody gives a bad performance here. Andrew Garfield is fine, he and Ellen Page have amazing chemistry, chemistry so good, you want to see the both of them team up again for a more character-driven romantic comedy. Sally Field steals the show with her "weepy mother figure" scenes and as much as I hold a grudge against Dane DeHaan (I can never forgive that punk for "Metallica Through the Never") he is a more sympathetic Harry Osborn than James Franco. As for Jamie Foxx, I'm sorry to say, but he's seriously miscast here and I say that not against the man as an actor but the fact that he doesn't really do anything that allows him to put his Oscar-Winning talents to it's fullest. When he's the dweeby weird max Dillon, he sells it, but when he's Electro, it's really awkward to watch because he looks like a pale blue Michael Jackson. Not helping is Electro is not a compelling villain. His motivation is to kill Spider-Man by shutting off the power to the entire city and then destroy the energy core he designed? Um….glad to see you have long-term plans for that. Paul Giamatti is forgettable, hell, even when I first saw him, my brain didn't make the connection that it was him, goes to show how memorable a villain he was right? Also, for some reason that still baffles me, the screenwriters decided to include the character Felicia Hardy (Felicity Jones) when the only purpose she serves is to play the exposition buddy for one scene and….that's it. A love Interest for Peter in the future or just there to make the comic book fans squee, I dunno, I really don't and say, Stan Lee was in this wasn't he? 

Acting is fine, it's how the characters are written that bugs me. The actors are clearly trying their best, but they just don't have a strong cohesive story for them to work with, the narrative just juggles them all around, occasionally pulling them back in whenever the writers think they're needed to elicit an emotional response.

Production:

I saw this in 3D and while some shots looked really nice like the First-Person perspective of Spider-Man swinging through New York and the sparks flying from Electro's energy blasts, the effect just wasn't that impressive to me…and that's probably the nicest thing I can say about he movie production-wise, cause oh man do I have issues with this movie's production. Problems that just take me out of the movie and force me to look at it and ask "dude, was anyone actually looking at this and thought it was okay?"

First problem is the editing. It's fast paced enough for the action scenes, but there are certain instances where, if you pay attention, the backgrounds seem to be slanted sideways. There are two scenes in particular where I noticed this: the first is where Harry and Peter are on a beach throwing stones and as Peter talks to Harry, the New York skyline behind him is slanted, did the director intentionally suggest a Dutch angle or did the camera guy not lock the camera properly? Another example of this problem happens in Peter's bedroom where Aunt May tells Peter about his parents, when Peter bends down to face his Aunt, the background slants again, only to suddenly be set properly in the next edit. I still don't get this, even the director on the set of a high-budget film ought to notice these sort of things.

Second Problem is the makeup. I already explained that I found it strange to paint a black actor all pale blue only to use computer effects to make him glowy, you might as well could have just motion capture dots on Jamie Foxx and used his movements from on the set to create a CGI being over him. But perhaps the worst choice of make-up is Harry Osborn at the end when he takes on the suit and glider. It's one of the most laughable make-up jobs I have ever seen in my life. Harry looks like Teen Wolf was doused with Radiation, but instead of turning into the Toxic Avenger, he got bit by a werewolf and found a spare batman suit lying around so he painted it green and decided to act like he snorted PCP. Yeah that's a little too descriptive but seriously, look at this make-up work! Somebody actually looked at this and said "yeah, let's go for it." Was designing a mask just not possible with a $200 million budget?

Third Problem, the music. I'm usually the nice guy for the music, but the music for this movie sucks. Apart from playing whatever crap adults think young people listen to, the movie has this strange habit of mixing dubstep into the orchestrated score. The dustup score usually plays during the scenes with Electro, but the orchestra sometimes pulls through along with it. Don't understand what I mean? Let me try to explain: there's a scene where Electro is being experimented on by this crazy doctor named "Dr. Ashley Kafka" who plays "The Blue Danube" while he works, then the score is undermined with the dustup score and then it goes back to the Blue Danube. It's incredibly jarring and it bugs me. If you wanted some dustup in the soundtrack. I could honestly suggest a better selection of bands and artists who could have written a better soundtrack than Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams created and the first few bands that comes to mind are Muse, Imagine Dragons, Arcade Fire, Jack White, and the Foo Fighters.

Bottom Line:

I don't like being the bad guy here when there were things about this movie that I did enjoy watching on a big screen. But this movie just stinks of Studio Dominated Release, a movie where the director and writers were not in charge, but the studios were the ones calling the shots. Why else would this movie have so many ill-advised choices to tell a narrative story or make the movie the way it is? The story is a confused mishmash of subplots strewn together to elicit an emotional response, the characters are not terribly well-written even when the actors are trying their best to make it work, the special effects look good, but my issues with the technical elements of the film just keep this film from being less enjoyable as it ought to be. But the movie at least didn't make me angry, the worst a movie can do is make me angry (ex. "Stay Alive," "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"), all this movie did was just leave me wishing for more. There are many words I would use to describe this movie and sadly, "Amazing" is not one of them. Now "Spider-Man 2" from 2004? That was pretty amazing.

Final Rating: 2/5

Also, I forgot to mention, at the end during the credits, the movie forces in a teaser for "X-Men Days of Future Past," it has no context, no purpose and has nothing to do with Spider-Man. The only conclusion I can reach with why this was included was the people at Sony had no confidence in the Spider-Man license that they had to force in a teaser of another upcoming Marvel movie just try and get you'll excited. That's pathetic.