Aaaaaaaargh! They
f***ed it up! Being a big fan of Spider-Man, I really wanted this
movie to be good. But alas, it isn't. Let's take a look at it. I'll
try to avoid spoilers as much as I can.
After a brief sequence
showing how the Parkers died, Amazing Spider-Man 2
begins with Peter and Gwen's high school graduation as the two
contemplate whether their relationship should continue. Meanwhile,
Harry Osborn, Gwen's boss and a childhood friend of Peter's, learns
that he's inherited a few things form his now dead father, both good
and bad (mostly bad). Then in subplot number sixty-one, a timid
Spidey-obsessed OsCorp employee named Max Dillon suffers a terrible
accident that turns him into Electro. So yeah, there's quite a few
plotlines in this film, but it doesn't really feel like too much
until the film's second half when scenes start jumping around really
quickly. It makes the story more meandering and difficult to get
into. There's also one or two conversation scenes that go on for a
bit too long, particularly the romance scenes between Peter and Gwen
because you already know how that's going to turn out (though the two
still have good chemistry). There's also a bunch of stuff that
happens for no reason: Harry's recovery towards the end, Peter
suddenly becoming obsessed with his parents, Peter being OK by the
film's end, and the entire Rhino story, which is brief, unexplained,
nonsensical, unresolved, and extremely disappointing. The twist
explaining the Parkers' deaths is extremely predictable and overdone.
You might already know what it is.
Look at the bright
side, the acting is pretty good... for the most part. Andrew Garfield
and Emma Stone both do their roles admirably. So does Sally Field as
Aunt May. And while Electro's character has the most basic of
motivations, at least he's acted well thanks to Jamie Foxx. Rhino is
played by Paul Giamatti, who you can tell is having fun hamming it up.
But then there's Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn. At first he channels a
young Leonardo DiCaprio, but then once (*ahem) something happens he
starts channeling Frankie Muniz on crack. It looks really silly.
In spite of
Spider-Man's costume looking better, there are a bunch of dumb/cheesy
production choices. A lot of fights seemed too short. Stan Lee's
cameo was dull; he doesn't do or say anything. And the music cues are
just weird and confusing. Apparently when electrical generators light
up they sound off a musical note? There's also this weird tune that
plays whenever we see Electro deep in thought and I'm not sure if the
faint voices (that you can't quite make out anyways) are supposed to
be in his head or if they're just song lyrics.
Don't bother sitting
through the end credits; there's nothing to see except an X-Men
trailer that was so absurdly unexpected and out of place that I
couldn't help but burst into laughter. What betrayal is this?!
That kind of sums up
Amazing Spider-man 2 in a nutshell. The plot is cluttered and
overwhelming, as if they wrote two films into one. There is fun to be
had here, but all the jumbled, confusing stuff makes it a hard movie
to really get into.
Rating: two and a half
stars out of five.
