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

[paul_austin]

The worst thing about the third Raimi film is that the Sandman storyline would've made a fine movie on its own.

The Bee Vees (V for Venom!) plot line was excruciating.

Venom was shoehorned into the story at the insistence of the studio.
One thing about this (ASM2) film was the music felt like it was from another movie. It just never worked for me. And I am sorry Sally Field but Rosemary Harris from Raimi's Spiderman films is the living embodiment of Aunt May.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Disappointing recent cinematic outings - for the 2 big SMans - Spidey and Supes. Spidey slightly better because of Garfield/Stone chemistry.

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman - please stop spreading yourselves so thin. We the fans are paying the price. Thank you.

 

[Patrick Sun]

That average writing team has split up.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

That average writing team has split up.

Yes, I saw that. A step in the right direction. Now each need to scale back on the number of simultaneous projects they are involved with.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I finally saw this yesterday, and I was happy to find that I enjoyed it. Warning for potential SPOILERS!!!!It certainly has its flaws. The pacing could have used some tightening up, especially around the middle act. Electro was ok. The portrayal of Max pre-transformation was a bit over the top, but just a bit. And it certainly set up that this was an unstable individual. The Harry thing seemed a bit rushed. If he had the same condition as his father he seemed to be progressing quite quickly at age 20. I suppose if Norman started trying "cures" on himself quite a while ago that would explain why he managed to hold it together through his 50's/60's. I think the Harry arc would have been stronger if he had been a presence in the first film and had more of a real adult friendship with Peter rather than re-establishing a childhood friendship. I thought Spider-Man's web swinging was superb. His quipy demeanor was straight out of the comic books. As with the first film, the relationship between Peter and Gwen and their chemistry remains a strong point of the film. I thought Peter's struggle with his guilt over breaking his promise to Captain Stacey and trying again to keep it was well handled. And that, of course, flowed through the main narrative culminating with Gwen's fate and Peter stopping being Spider-Man for half a year. Sally Field's Aunt May was well used. I think her acting in the scene with Peter in his room when she discovered he was obsessing about his parents' fate was a highlight. I was certainly moved by her performance. The score was pretty cool. The Electro "paranoia" theme seemed to capture the mental instability of Max pretty well. And it had a unique sound. The new Spidey Theme was good, and I think "It's On Again" over the end end credits was quite good and really captured the emotional state of Peter at the end of the film. Peter's ringtone was great!I think shaving off maybe 10 minutes or so, tightening up the pace, and re-working some of the villain stuff would have made it a stronger film. They were certainly ambitious with the script. Probably too ambitious. It's easy to see why they cut out Mary Jayne. The story was a bit "stuffed" and dropping her in this to streamline was the right call. It would have been stronger if they did a bit more streamlining, I think. I enjoyed the first film, and I think I enjoyed this about as much. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. I'll have to see it again to see where it falls. I can understand criticisms about pacing and maybe uneven tone. I can not understand complaints comparing it to Batman and Robin (or Batman Forever). Ridiculous comparison. Aside from some levity from Spider-Man (which is comic accurate) and pre-transformation Max being a little goofy, the movie still had a serious story about choice, consequence, love and loss.

 

[TravisR]

His quipy demeanor was straight out of the comic books.

While it might have bordered on being too silly, I loved the joke of Spidey wearing the fireman's helmet when he was helping use the hose. Clearly, I have odd comedic tastes but thinking about that image makes me chuckle.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Just wanted to add that I think Sony's handling of the marketing was poor. I think almost every single money shot was shown to some degree in trailers and TV spots. Also, the midcredit clip from Days of Future Past was clunky, awkward, and very out of place. My understanding was that Webb was under contract for doing a Fox film, but they let him do ASM2 for Sony in exchange for Sony providing free advertising for the new X-Men movie. Understanding that still didn't make that midcredit advert any less jarring. I hope it is removed for the BD.

 

[Sean Bryan]

While it might have bordered on being too silly, I loved the joke of Spidey wearing the fireman's helmet when he was helping use the hose. Clearly, I have odd comedic tastes but thinking about that image makes me chuckle.

That was perfect Spidey right there.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

More of a tech comment than a movie quality comment...

I just read in "American Cinematographer" about the post-production workflow on this film. Although it was shot on 35mm anamorphic, and that was scanned at 4K, those files were downrezzed all of the effects and post work was done in 2K. Which was then unconverted to 4K for the final master. So if Sony releases this as a "Mastered in 4K" title or on their 4K set-top device (forgot what it's called), it won't truly be in 4K no matter what the advertising claims.

Interesting that while Sony and other manufacturers seem to be aggressively promoting Ultra HD and 4K for the future of home entertainment, they're not even doing their largest, highest profile release in 4K.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

This movie was like a desperate series of Vaudeville acts, each ending with the sound of crickets. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 just keeps sweating and stomping through one exhausting number after another, maniacal smile bolted in place, and all the while casting repeated worrying glances to stage left in the hopes that The Hook won't come poking out of the wings.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

More of a tech comment than a movie quality comment...

I just read in "American Cinematographer" about the post-production workflow on this film. Although it was shot on 35mm anamorphic, and that was scanned at 4K, those files were downrezzed all of the effects and post work was done in 2K. Which was then unconverted to 4K for the final master. So if Sony releases this as a "Mastered in 4K" title or on their 4K set-top device (forgot what it's called), it won't truly be in 4K no matter what the advertising claims.

Interesting that while Sony and other manufacturers seem to be aggressively promoting Ultra HD and 4K for the future of home entertainment, they're not even doing their largest, highest profile release in 4K.

And this is exactly what happened. The new Blu-ray boasts "Mastered In 4K" but, at least going from what the American Cinematographer coverage suggested, all of the effects work and DI were done at 2K, and this is one of those movies where there's a special effect in just about every shot. The disc looked pretty good to my eyes, but in my opinion, it seems wrong to call it 4K.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

At least Sony's marketing superlatives are restrained. They haven't yet boasted that their live-action films have been captured from actual reality, which boasts an ultimate resolution of the Planck Limit, or quantum foam (from which a disappointingly crappy 2K release is finally produced). But give them a few years.

 

[SamT]

I just recently watched this movie and was greatly disappointed. I loved the first movie and give it 9/10. I give this second movie 3/10. The only amazing thing about it is how they could make such bad, uninteresting movie after all the right things they did in film one.

 

[Simon Massey]

I think the most disappointing thing about this film is that the two central leads are fantastic in their respective roles, have great chemistry and despite the mess of the preceding two hours, the defining moment when it comes is still extremely well done, largely down to them. It is such a shame that the rest is such a mess and this great chemistry has been squandered and wasted in favour of an attempt to build its own multiple film franchise as fast as possible.

Everyone is in a rush to catch up with Marvel and the Avengers and are forgetting the time they took beforehand. I have a feeling DC are about to make the same mistakes with Batman/Superman etc.

Not that Im saying everything Marvel is doing is perfect by any means, but all the other franchises seem to be in a rush to emulate them.

 

[JoeDoakes]

The fault must lie with the scriptwriters and director as the film was very overlong at almost 2 1/2 hours.

I don't know about that. As a long time fan of the Spiderman comic books of the 1960s and 1970s, I really liked the Tobey Maguire series, as I felt that it captured the spirit of those stories. The big problem was with Spiderman 3. It seemed to me like they probably originally had a compact story about Peter Parker becoming over confident and being tempted to go in the wrong direction as part of the Venom story. However, for some reason, telling a straightforward story wasn't enough, so a completely unnecessary Sandman plot was inserted. That film also seemed overlong, and it's not surprising that Sam Raimi did not want to do a Spiderman 4. Now with the Amazing Spiderman 2, how many villains were there: Electro, Rhino, Green Goblin? In my opinion, the true villain of the Spiderman films is none of those fellas. It's Sony. For some reason, the studio thinks that they don't even need to worry about the story and they can simply pack the film with characters and explosions and let that be enough. Sooner or later audiences get tired of being conned, and for Sony's Spiderman films, that time has come.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I agree with Simon. I think the big stumble here was trying too hard to "expand" one single property artificially into set-up for a "cinematic universe". The narrative of this story definitely suffered for that. There is some good stuff in here, but it is unfortunately bogged down with lots of unnecessary noise.

 

[Sam Favate]

I think the most disappointing thing about this film is that the two central leads are fantastic in their respective roles, have great chemistry and despite the mess of the preceding two hours, the defining moment when it comes is still extremely well done, largely down to them. It is such a shame that the rest is such a mess and this great chemistry has been squandered and wasted in favour of an attempt to build its own multiple film franchise as fast as possible.

I'd agree that the two leads are great in their roles, but I think the final resolution for one of them just didn't fit with the tone of the rest of the movie, nor did Electro seem much of a threat (reminded me way too much of Jim Carey's awful Riddler in Batman Forever). The writers should have been bolder, and instead of giving audience what they knew they were getting, they should have changed or delayed one character's final resolution.

 

[Simon Massey]

You are probably right but since the film was conceived to build to that resolution, I put it down more to the rest of the film being the wrong tone and not focused enough on the two central leads and their development. The rush to get Spider-man his mojo back at the end is hugely problematic for the film and is a good example of the rush this film is in. It should have built to a far more ambiguous tone that could have carried over to the third film or this moment should have happened mid film to give time to develop the consequences properly here. The Dark Knight is a good example of doing it right given it shares a similar thread.

 

[SamT]

I never thought that Marc Webb would make any 1 dimensional villains but the moment I saw the beginning of the movie and saw how loud and awful Paul Giamatti was I knew something was wrong and this was going to be bad. The villains in this movie are as bad and uninteresting as any of the Joel Schumacher's Batman villains.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

What more motivation does one need beyond, "I am Rhino!" (THUMP-THUMP-THUMP)? That is pure Shakespearean tragedy and Machiavellian deviousness all wrapped in one, rhinoceros-shaped package.