THE CLUBBERS GUIDE TO MOVIES: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

Just got in a short while ago from seeing The Amazing Spider-man 2 and my initial reaction, is that I liked it a bit, but did not love it. The problem is that everything felt so rushed, for no real gains!

Be warned, at some point, this review will touch on some spoilers, so if you haven’t watched it, thread lightly. Now, let’s start this review off discussing what works.

Firstly, the VFX work used in creating a dynamic web-slinger and this installments villian Electro, played by Jamie Fox, is simply dazzling. Watching it in 3D was awesome and the little boy that grew up visiting comic shop book shops was delighted at the visual candy that Sony has served up. The web-slinging in 3-D is just sinply marvelous!

As for the characters? Well, Electro is far more powerful and magical than the Electro I grew up reading and watching on Saturday mornings during my childhood days, however Andrew Garfield is Peter Parker! Yes, I said it! His wise ass cracks in the costume means everything to the character! Watching Spidey help a kid with his science project tickled me through and through. That’s Spidey I love!

The combination of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, who plays Gwen Stacy, could’ve supported a good half dozen Amazing Spider-Man adventures. The chemistry between these two really works as well as nearly all the CG used to bring the ultimate vision of Electro to life. The scenes of them together just work, especially when Spidey is on a skyscraper looking down upon her in the streets and choosing to keep an eye on her versus saving some lives. In fact, that’s the heart of the character right there IMO; the choice between what his heart wants and the responsibility he feels; we all know Spidey is there to do what must be done, but the rules of Spider-man dictate that if he’s happy he’ll end up in tears. They made this work really well.

What does not work? Main thing you really need to know going in: this is an Electro movie. The Green Goblin and Rhino scenes are brief and truthfully F’N annoying! They seem unnecessarily tagged onto this film. But let’s discuss Jamie Foxx’s Max Dillon/Electro. I’m not real sure where the social pariah part of the character came from – his character did have some slight ego issues with feeling like a lesser super-villain, but here, Foxx plays Max as a fragile genius with electricity working at OsCorps. Now, hearing about the cut scene where Foxx was supposed to kill his mother, really really hurts the character – and definitely should’ve made the film truth be told, but I get it, they needed the time to tell more of the pointless Parker parent saga <sigh>. However, his turn to evil felt too instantly erratic and rushed. I felt the ascension to power madness wasn’t realized as well as I feel Foxx probably could have mustered. Once the character is unleashed there is some pretty significant awe and wonder at his powers, it’s just that this isn’t the character that I grew up with – so I gave it quite a bit of latitude, since what they were doing with the character I found mildly interesting.

As for the two big reveals, as soon as we all saw that certain outfit on Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy at the plant, we knew what was going to happen here. I mean, I suppose Emma Stone must not have signed on for a third film because why the hell get rid of her with this outing. The scene that does it – kind of perfect, but I still feel there was zero need to do that in this film. The longer you put it off, the better. Redefine in the audience’s mind that Peter belongs with Gwen; two films isn’t enough. In the comic books we spent some quality time with these two. Handling it like this just comes across as rushing.

The other reveal, was the formation of the Sinister Six with Harry Osborne helming the rat pack starting with Paul Giamatti’s Aleksei Sytevich aka Rhino. Oh, I would be remissed if I didn’t touch on that suit which is God awful truth be told! I expected Robocop to enter and fight the latest installment of the Enforcement Droid or Sigourney Weaver’s exo-skeleton suit from Alien, but I digress. Anyway, it’s quite clear that the Sinister Six will part of the next series of Spidey films.

As the film rounded up, I felt there were pacing issues, it was unbalanced in some parts while completely off at other points. At a certain point in watching the film, I thought Michael Bay directed the film. It had that weird, quick cut, rushed, forced and messy pace mixed with great visual effects.

This isn’t a terrible film, but its not great either, just good. If you want to watch this movie for the action, then you’re in for a treat. However, you will need to get through the clunky dialog, bad pacing, okay acting, rushed villain origin stories, and a generic storyline. In total, there is probably only around 30-40 minutes of action which means you will need to get through the 90 to 100 minutes of everything else, which spends most of its time setting up future movies.