The Hollywood Outsider – Film and Television Podcast | Reviews An award-winning film and television podcast for the fan in all of us
Comic-Book sequels are churned out at roughly the speed of light these days, yet every once in a while one movie arrives that sets you aback in your seat, mouth agape. That rare film that not only separates itself from its predecessor, it takes its series to greater cinematic heights than even the staunchest of fanboys could ever hope to dream. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is not that movie.
Before we get into what works vs. what does not, here is the story:
Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is once again attempting to juggle web-slinging with relationships as he has mostly ignored his promise to Captain Stacy (Denis Leary) from the previous film and pursued an involvement with his daughter, Gwen (Emma Stone). Peter’s internal battle of the love he feels for Gwen versus the obvious risk his alter-ego places her at is the right take for this character, and gives the film the grounding it desperately needs for everything else the film attempts.
Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), on the other hand, has no such relationship. Departing from the source material a bit, Foxx’s Max is a genius with electrical circuits and a complete loon without them. He has an unhealthy obsession with imaginary friends (including our beloved Spidey), and the character is meant to invoke a sympathetic loner who has spent his entire life in the world’s background.
After the clichéd ‘accident in the lab’, Max is infused with massive currents of electricity and assumes the name of Electro; himself becoming a simple man granted an extraordinary amount of power. Spider-Man with a surge protector. Upon realizing that most people look disparagingly on a man with a powder-blue neon glow, Electro elects to punish all that have mocked or ignored him…as well as Spider-Man himself.
The film also drops in a plotline about Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), Peter’s estranged best friend, returning to take over Oscorp from his ailing father. In turn, Harry learns his family’s genetic secret which he will need Spider-Man’s reluctant help to resolve.
In case we did not have enough story for one film, we also get more details and drama on the backstory of Peter’s parents. Why they left, the effect they had on poor Aunt May (Sally Field, proving once again to be more actress than this role deserves), and of course: What was their big secret that was alluded to in the first film?
Yes, ALL of that is prevalent in this film. This is a trilogy crammed into a 141-minute running film. Not only is it crammed, for such a slow pace (the middle third of ASM 2 is a LOT of exposition) every single character in the film just feels rushed. Electro never really gets to show why we should sympathize with him, because we are too busy worrying about whether Harry will find a cure for his family’s genetic disorder, when we SHOULD be wondering what’s going on with Peter’s parents and Aunt May’s finances…but what about Peter and Gwen?! Are they going to get together? Is she taking that scholarship at Oxford?! ARGH! If you are exhausted just reading that, wait until you try to keep up with the film.
Instead of building on the promise of the previous film, director Marc Webb (along with writers Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinker & James Vanderbilt) elected to travel the Spider-Man 3 route and invoke more plotlines than a Spanish soap opera on sweeps week. That is not to say this is a ‘bad movie’, some of the visuals Webb uses to showcase Spidey traversing through New York as the best of any of the five films and the action scenes rarely disappoint. It is to say that these lessons learned from films like ‘Batman & Robin’ are taught at Comic-Book Movie 101, and this crew played hooky. There are simply too many threads running through this web to construct a cohesive film and the overall story suffers heavily because of it.
Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Sally Field are what saves ASM 2 from falling too far.
Garfield simply IS both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. He continues his wonderful work from the previous film and establishes his take as a true every-guy who recognizes his path as hero is meant to be wrecked with angst…yet that path should never preclude him from hope. His Spider-Man is the perfect embodiment of the hero from Marvel’s pages, full of both wise-cracks and heart. One scene that immediately leaps to mind is a minor scene where our web-head saves a young boy from bullies, and then softly helps him repair his science project. THIS is Spider-Man.
Put that in a blender with his chemistry with Stone (proving once again with her wiley attitude and cocksure wit that she should play the girlfriend for every superhero going forward) and his beautiful relationship with May; and you have more heart in one film than most Comic-Book franchises muster in their entirety. If Webb managed to garner even half of this characterization with his villains, this could have been a superhero masterpiece.
Electro as a villain barely works in the comics and the film does him even less justice. Electricity may debatably give a lovely visual aesthetic, yet it is difficult to fear a character who could essentially be defeated with a nice pair of designer rubber boots and a bottle of Evian. Foxx is not the problem either, this issue is all in the writing.
Harry’s story would play nicely in a film of its own and DeHaan does a nice job steering minds away from James Franco; unfortunately it takes a gigantic leap in logic, science and common sense to get behind the insane trajectory the writers put his character on by the end of the film. Even as a ‘Comic-Book’ movie, his development arc will make you think more than once that maybe Venom wasn’t so bad after all.
The biggest issue with ASM 2? The head-banging-against-the-wall parents subplot. Whether you are a long time Spider-Man fan or are new to the series – this plotline is ridiculously absurd and serves absolutely no purpose other than giving Peter and May one more contrivance to weep over. Uncle Ben and May’s financial despair would handle this aspect well enough all on its own, this added wrinkle does nothing more than steal moments of humanity from the otherwise well-constructed lead characters.
A mention must also be made of the score by a mix of Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams and Johnny Marr. There are moments where the music soars, generally when Spider-Man is mid-flight or in action mode…and then other moments where it feels so trapped in the 80’s with its synthetic beats, you would not be surprised if Axel Foley came rounding a corner. This was a very uneven mix unbefitting a film series of this magnitude.
For every moment that ASM 2 gets blatantly wrong, it has another moment of heart or greatness which saves the film from plummeting into Batman & Robin territory. There is a very good movie in here if you can forgive some of the more eye-rolling story points, and entertainment is the priority here. Webb has a beautiful eye for Spider-Man’s method of flight and his penchant for quiet character moments between Peter, Gwen and May cannot be mistaken. If he can manage to put more emphasis on these aspects and cut the multiple-plotline curse down considerably, The Amazing Spider-Man 3 could truly become something special.
If $10 is the full price of admission, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is worth $6
Aaron Peterson
The Hollywood Outsider