The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Quick review (1 Viewer)

[Nigel P]

I totally understand that view Matt. While I didn't hate it as much as you did, I expected to read more reviews like yours than some of the very positive impressions I have read.

 

[Patrick Sun]

"Amazing Spider-Man 2" was remarkably bland, with a bloated middle act that lacked narrative tension, and character motivations of the antagonist(s) were sorely lacking or juvenile. I really have no idea how screenwriters Orci and Kurtz keep landing writing gigs, because they are so mediocre, totally made me appreciate David Koepp's effort in the Raimi-directed Spider-Man films.

But it's not as bad as "Batman and Robin", mainly because it has very little ambition than to just occupy 140 minutes per showing at the theaters.

I give it 2 stars or a grade of C. (And I'm being charitable)

 

[DavidJ]

I really liked the first Amazing so these reviews are a bummer. Unfortunately, they seem in line with most of the critical reviews too. Even the positive ones have huge caveats. I'll probably still see it, but all my excitement for it has been drained away.

 

[Ejanss]

But it's not as bad as "Batman and Robin", mainly because it has very little ambition than to just occupy 140 minutes per showing at the theaters.

Maybe "Batman Forever" would be more accurate of tone?

 

[dpippel]

But it's not as bad as "Batman and Robin", mainly because it has very little ambition than to just occupy 140 minutes per showing at the theaters.

Maybe if they added nipples to the Spidey-suit...

 

[Yavin]

Batman Forever is exactly the vibe I got from the film, although parts of it (like Jamie Foxx's Electro) approach Batman & Robin levels of absurdity.

The main problem I had with the film was the one-note villains:

Part of what makes Spider-Man so interesting as a character are his enemies; and even with nearly two-and-a-half hours of breathing room, the story still sells them short, particularly Paul Giamatti's Aleksei/Rhino (who barely registers as a footnote in the film, serving more as comedic relief than genuine antagonist) and Jamie Foxx's Max/Electro (who isn't nearly as menacing as he ought to be, instead coming across as a bizarre amalgam of Jim Carrey's Edward Nygma and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze). Fortunately, there's Dane DeHaan, who makes an impact as Harry/Green Goblin, even though his evolution from friend to foe manages to set a new land-speed record for a superhero film. The shadow of Willem Dafoe and James Franco's performances from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy may loom over his portrayal, but DeHaan manages to make the role his own by delivering a meaner, nastier rendition than both Dafoe's Green Goblin and Franco's Hobgoblin combined.

On the plus side, the human element (i.e., the Peter/Gwen relationship) was handled very well:

However, depicting the story of Peter and Gwen is where The Amazing Spider-Man 2 really shines — and spectacularly so. Those who are familiar with the comics will know the pivotal role Gwen plays in Peter's arc, and the film doesn't treat their relationship lightly. Garfield's performance is as nuanced as ever, nailing the delicate balance between wise-cracking quipster and tortured soul, while Stone's portrayal of bold, headstrong Gwen runs circles around Kirsten Dunst's comparatively bland Mary Jane. Their chemistry together is palpable to the point of crackling right off the screen, and amid the visual spectacle of Spider-Man's confrontations with Electro and the Green Goblin, it brings some much needed emotional gravitas to the otherwise frenzied proceedings.

3 out of 5.

My full review can be found here.

 

[TravisR]

The stuff with Spider-Man is fun and works well enough but there's at least 45 minutes in the middle where the movie just gets completely bogged down with Peter Parker's personal problems. The Spider-Man comic book has always had Peter juggling Spidey and his personal problems and that's fine when you make one comic book a month but when you make one movie every two years, you can't waste 1/3 of the movie with Peter's relationship problems. Maybe I wouldn't have had such a problem with the relationship portion of the movie if it hadn't felt like a teen show on The CW (the model beautiful actors, designer clothes, people with problems like worrying about going to Oxford would all feel at home on many shows on The CW).

Like I said, the Spider-Man scenes are fun and they nail his quips and smartass nature. And I'll give them credit for going for it and (BIG spoilers)

Spoiler

killing off Gwen since it's such a big element of the character

but squandering so much time on what was essentially a soap opera really screwed up the movie. Is it that hard to look at the far more critically and commercially successful Marvel movies and just attempt to copy what they're doing?

Also, what's the deal with Michael Massee in these movies?

 

[Simon Massey]

Now that it's outOne of he biggest gripes I had was the forced splitting of Parker and Stacey at the start - one minute they are happy at the graduation, the next he is splitting up with her. And his entire motivation for doing it had already been brought up and resolved at the end of the last film so it clearly telegraphed where this was going as did the graduation speech itself which you just knew was going to figure later. Jamie Foxx initial portrayal also didn't work for me - he strikes me as a character you are suppose to feel for at the start even though he turns into the villain but the portrayal just seemed off - it made me think exactly of Batman Forever and skirted dangerously close to Batman and Robin ( thankfully no electric puns.)

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Saw this in digital IMAX 3D projection last night. Technically speaking, the film was bright and loud, and the converted 3D was one of the better examples of 3D conversion that I've seen. The first "Amazing Spider-Man" was shot with native 3D cameras, but I actually found the sequel's 3D to be more effective most of the time. (There was one scene where they did a flashback to the first film, and seeing the real 3D of that shot intercut with the fake 3D of the next shot made the actors in the fake 3D seem a little less lifelike.. but in the big effects sequences, my initial impression has been that the newer film was more effective.)

Overall, the movie was better than I expected. I didn't have my hopes very high, and when I rewatched the first "Amazing Spider-Man" the other night, I was surprised to find it a bit duller than I remembered. Like that first film, this sequel is wildly uneven. At times, it feels made up of puzzle pieces from different puzzles.

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have great on-screen chemistry, so it's a shame to me that most of their seems together seem like high school-level improv. They spend so much time just gazing at each other and kinda giggling, and almost talking to each other, but not really. As with Raimi's Spider-Man films with Mary-Jane, much of the romantic tension came off to me as more obnoxious and annoying. You both say you love each other, you both want to be together, and there's literally nothing stopping that from happening... so just get on with it already. The frequent discussions the two characters have about wanting to break up, should we break up, now we're broken up, it's old even before the movie starts. (As one poster here already noted, that "will they/won't they be a couple" was pretty effectively resolved at the end of the first film.)

Sally Field has a few scenes as Aunt May, and she's wonderful in all of them.

The film also delves a little more into the "secret origin" plot that was promoted so heavily for the first film, but ultimately dropped from the first movie itself. We learn a little more about Peter's father (well-played by Campbell Scott) and his former work for OsCorp -- I still don't think we're given enough, but it's more than the first film at least. The opening sequences, which goes back to the opening of the first film, only this time showing us the events from Richard Parker's point of view instead of Peter's, is effective.

Which brings us to the worst part of the film.. the villains. Jamie Foxx is flat-out terrible in the film, although I hesitate to blame the actor because the part as written is flat-out terrible. Though I think the Batman Forever/Batman & Robin comparisons that I've read for this movie are exaggerated, Foxx does come across pre-transformation like Jim Carrey in Batman Forever, and post-transformation like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Batman & Robin. His character is pathetic, socially inept, with very little motivation or depth to his actions - but pathetic and inept in a way that it's just not believable that someone like that would be an engineering genius. The events surrounding his transformation also strain credibility. (Not that he turns into an electric ghost - it's a comic book movie, I can run with that - but that he's literally the only employee left in the building from his department, ordered to repair something alone, obvious safety precautions denied, etc. It's a laughably silly contrivence.) Because Foxx's character is, frankly, so lame, it was hard for me to feel dramatic tension as he's threatening Spider-Man later in the film. I was never afraid of what he could do, I never accepted him as a real threat.

Dane DeHaan fares somewhat better as Harry Osbourne. The writers do him no favors by skimping on character development, and putting in a transformation that seems too much, too soon. It also is somewhat odd that we're asked to accept Harry as Peter's best friend, and yet he's not name-dropped once during the first movie. (Yes, it's explained why we didn't see Harry during the events of the first film, but it still seems strange that they're supposed to be very close after they had previous laid exactly zero groundwork for that.) Still, that's a lot easier to accept than what happens to Harry as the film progresses. When we first meet him, he seems perfectly healthy. Then he has a scene with his dying father, who reveals that Harry has inherited a genetic defect that seems something like a cross between Parkinson's, MS, and Gehrig's disease. Suddenly, from that moment on, Harry is all of a sudden dying rapidly, even though he appeared fine prior to that, and even though it took his own father decades to die of the same ailment. The unbelievable suddenness of Harry's illness leads to Harry making equally unbelievable decisions that carried very little dramatic weight with me. By the end of the film, Dane DeHaan went from being perhaps the most interesting thing about this new film to the most wasted. If Jamie Foxx's decescent into villainy seemed poorly motivated and unbelievable, compared to DeHaan, Foxx's arc seems Shakespearian.

Like most films of this type, it all culimates in a loud, explosive, overly-CGI'd end battle where the stakes for the characters have never been higher, but have never felt lower for the audience. The film does regain a little momentum towards the end by shifting focus back to the characters and not the action, but this is abandoned in the final minutes with an action sequence that is more of an end credits-type tease than a finale to the actual film.

All in all, this is a wildly uneven movie that squanders many chances to be more interesting than it ultimately ends up being. It's entertaining in fits and starts. I feel like most people watching it will be able to find at least one thing about the movie they'll like, but that there won't be many people proclaiming their love for the film either. On the plus side, the effects are pretty good, and the sensation of being in flight with Spidey has never been done better than it is here. On the other hand, the villains are laughably weak, most plot twists are telegraphed loudly in advance, and the tone of the film is disjointed throughout. Or, as my guest at the screening put it, "I liked it but I'll probably never watch it again."

 

[Ejanss]

Jamie Foxx initial portrayal also didn't work for me - he strikes me as a character you are suppose to feel for at the start even though he turns into the villain but the portrayal just seemed off - it made me think exactly of Batman Forever and skirted dangerously close to Batman and Robin ( thankfully no electric puns.)

When we saw the second trailer, detailing Foxx's nerd's-revenge plot as Electro, who didn't, by instinctive reflex, immediately start quoting Jim Carrey's "You were sup-POSED to under-STAND!"?

 

[Colin Jacobson]

When we saw the second trailer, detailing Foxx's nerd's-revenge plot as Electro, who didn't, by instinctive reflex, immediately start quoting Jim Carrey's "You were sup-POSED to under-STAND!"?

I never saw that trailer, but watching "ASM2" yesterday was struck by how much Max seemed like a copy of Edward Nygma from "BF" - with lots of Emperor Palpatine thrown in after he becomes Electro.

I didn't much like "ASM" but I hoped "ASM2" would be an improvement. It wasn't - if anything, it was worse. Garfield still makes a crappy Peter, and I think there's no chemistry at all between him and Stone - they make a dull couple with no sizzle.

The story was slow and boring, and the action did little to enliven the situation. On the surface, it seems like it should be fun, but I could never suspend disbelief - I always felt like I was watching CG battle CG.

No emotional impact at any point, no good plot development to motivate actions. Not much entertainment along the way...

 

[Sean Bryan]

I won't get a chance to see this until next weekend, but of course I'll be going in with significantly lowered expectations. I'm hoping that like Man of Steel I'll be able to find it enjoyable for the spectacle and some of the performances while acknowledging and accepting that it is far from perfect regarding some story issues and structure. But based on the general feedback out there my expectations are tempered.

 

[David Weicker]

I saw this yesterday, and thought it was ok. Not horrible, but nothing really special.
Didn't like the Jamie Foxx character before - too jokey. Did like the Electro character.

And both my sons and I thought the Green Goblin was channeling Stephen Geoffrey's 'Evil Ed' from Fright Night.

 

[TravisR]

And both my sons and I thought the Green Goblin was channeling Stephen Geoffrey's 'Evil Ed' from Fright Night.

"You're so cool, Parker!"

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I'm hoping that like Man of Steel I'll be able to find it enjoyable for the spectacle and some of the performances while acknowledging and accepting that it is far from perfect regarding some story issues and structure.

As someone who's seen the movie, I think that sums it up pretty well!

 

[Todd Erwin]

Saw it in RealD 3D last night (I skipped the IMAX 3D and RPX 3D showings based on recent issues with my local theater), and agree for the most part with what the majority here are saying - too many villains, and potential that was never realized.

What I found very odd about the screening I attended was the intro to the film by Andrew Garfield, essentially thanking the exhibitors for all their support leading up to the release of the film. Were paying audiences supposed to see this? It felt like this intro was recorded specifically for a pre-release screening meant for theater employees.

Another annoyance with the film was all the Sony product placement - if someone was using a computer, camera, TV, etc., it was Sony. I know Sony Pictures is having some financial difficulties, but it was a bit too much.

 

[TravisR]

What I found very odd about the screening I attended was the intro to the film by Andrew Garfield, essentially thanking the exhibitors for all their support leading up to the release of the film. Were paying audiences supposed to see this? It felt like this intro was recorded specifically for a pre-release screening meant for theater employees.

I saw it at the Regal theater chain and right before the start of the movie, there was a quick reminder from Garfield and Stone that I could upgrade my ticket and get an HD copy of The Amazing Spider-Man and be among the first to get a digital copy of the sequel.

 

[Todd Erwin]

I saw it at the Regal theater chain and right before the start of the movie, there was a quick reminder from Garfield and Stone that I could upgrade my ticket and get an HD copy of The Amazing Spider-Man and be among the first to get a digital copy of the sequel.

Didn't see that promo at my Regal theater. Like I said, this was a promo obviously intended for exhibitor staff.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Another annoyance with the film was all the Sony product placement - if someone was using a computer, camera, TV, etc., it was Sony. I know Sony Pictures is having some financial difficulties, but it was a bit too much.

I feel like Sony has been leading the way in aggressive product placement, at least as far back as the 2006 version of Casino Royale. When they have an opportunity to promote themselves, they take it. Even little touches -- like the "Dogtown and Z Boys" movie poster on Peter Parker's wall, that movie is distributed via Sony. The idea of Peter Parker liking skateboarding and having a skater movie poster on his wall seems totally at home with the character, but I'm sure it's no accident that the skateboarding movie they picked was one owned by Sony.

Disney/Marvel got into this game a little bit, having Captain America hide out in an Apple Store in the latest movie. (Disney doesn't own Apple but they're really good friends.)

 

[Sam Favate]

It was better than I thought it would be, but it had some problems, not least of which was the villains. Garfield and Stone were both excellent, and the movie would not have succeeded at all without both of them. Jamie Foxx - so good in so many movies - wasn't here, and it's because the part wasn't well written. Dane DeHaan - a good choice for Harry - suffered from his Goblin being over the top -- the character's look was far from menacing and looked kinda silly. I am not a Paul Giamatti fan; never cared for his work (I hated Sideways). I didn't care for him here, as all he did was shout his lines and growl. Sally Field was very good, and really excelled in her scenes. Denis Leary's few appearances reminded me that he was miscast last time around. Capt. Stacy was a warmer, more positive presence in the comics. Leary's was gruff and unfriendly.

I think the writers missed a huge opportunity with this movie. The braver choice would have been to not keep to the comic book storyline and instead keep Gwen alive. Forty years ago, her death was a shock to comic book readers who weren't used to major characters dying; Spider-Man became more grim and his world darker as a result. Now, we're used to major characters dying all the time, to the point where it's a cliche now (and an annoying one at that -- trying to get emotional resonance with the audience by pulling their heartstrings), and every story, every movie is a dark place. Also, comic writers killed Gwen all those years ago not because it made sense for Peter's story, but because they didn't know what else to do with her. The harder story to write would have been to figure out how to keep using her, particularly when you have a talent like Emma Stone at your disposal.

I liked the New York aspect of the movie (any Spider-Man movie should be a New York movie). The movie spent a bit too much time setting up the future franchise. I'm kind of afraid that there's never going to be a payoff to all this set-up. These writers are very good at this kind of vague establishment of mystery with little or no payoff.