The sequel to the 2012 Amazing Spiderman, finds Peter Parker not only wrestling with bad guys on the streets of New York, but with relationships in his personal life, bad publicity from the Daily Bugle and ghosts from his past. Along with all of that, there is an underlying plot from Oscorp, that is now under the leadership of his old friend Harry Osborn, to take out the web head. His most powerful foe to date, Electro, also gives Spiderman a unique challenge. Not your typical life for a teenage boy!
Cast
Who will like this
Fans of the 2007 Spiderman 3 with Toby McGuire will relate most with this latest addition of the Spiderman character. Anyone who felt that the first Amazing Spiderman was too far off from the comic book series will be happy to see that they stayed a bit more true to the comics in this one. However, as with the first one, it moves a bit too slow and may be too extreme in it's action sequences for very young viewers. Parents should use their own judgments, but my suggestion it should not be viewed by children under 8.
Phantom Thoughts
Anyone who knows me or is a follower of this blog knows that I wasn't a big fan of the first "Amazing Spiderman" movie with Andrew Garfield. But leading up to the release of this one, I had read about some of the changes that were made that made it more similar to the comic books. Although this was encouraging, as I started seeing trailers and commercials, I was once again disappointed in the direction they were hinting toward heading. I had every intention of going in to see it with an open mind as a reviewer, but as fan, I did not have very high hopes.
Within the first few minutes...I was pleasantly surprised. Along with the changes to the costume that made it look more like it should (the wider, whiter eye lenses, the brighter colors and the "belt") they also made his character more of the quick-witted Spiderman rather than the snarky, egotistical jerk he was in the first. The CGI was a lot better as well, which was apparent when he jumped off a skyscraper and you could see his costume fluttering in the wind as he fell.
Emma Stone returns and continues to portray Gwen Stacy in the same brilliance she did in the first. Not only that, but the film makers did not try to "Hollywood up" the storyline between Gwen and Peter. In that I mean...HUGE SPOILER ALERT....they not only dressed Emma's Gwen in the same outfit she died in in the comic book, but they actually kept her death in, instead of having Spidey save her in the end. This was a major plot development and will prove important in shaping who Peter Parker/Spiderman is to become in further sequels.
Contrary to what you've read so far...this was not the perfect movie it could have been. It suffers the same fate that Spiderman 3 did in 2007. Just too many characters and villains and the storyline gets bogged down with sub-plots and obvious set-ups for a third movie. And in the midst of all that, the character development of this movie's main villain is lost. Jamie Foxx plays both Max Dillon and Electro very well, but why there is such a dramatic transformation in his personality once the change in his body happens is very weak.
Speaking of Electro....there is one small detail that no one would notice that bothered me. The CGI that made Electro glow with power and electricity was really cool, but the "Power Meter" that Oscorp put on the side of his head was digitally added as well. Why? That's something that could have been put together by any amateur model maker and applied with a small amount of Spirit Glue. Did they really need to CGI that as well? But that's just nit-picking.
One thing they also managed to correct was Spiderman ripping off his mask every other second like he did in the first film. Unfortunately, that's because Spidey spent so little time on screen. I mean, the name of the movie IS "The Amazing Spiderman" so I would think that the web-slinger would have a bit more screen time. Something that could have been corrected if they got rid of some of those problematic sub-plots I mentioned before.
One of those sub-plots being the mystery of Peter Parker's parents. More specifically his father, who we learn in more detail about what he was working on in Oscorp and why he mysteriously disappeared. Things that I did not like in the first film, and like even less in this one. There WAS one small bit of info that was divulged in these sequences that I like though. In a flashback, Richard Parker explains that they biogenically created the spiders at Oscorp lab using radio-active isotopes. This is more of a life line toward the original comic where Peter Parker was bitten by a radio-active spider than implied in the first film of just being biologically engineered spiders. SPOILER: he also claims to have used is own blood in his experiments which mean that ONLY his son Peter could possibly be Spiderman. Ummmm....what?
So the final verdict is this: "Amazing Spiderman 2" was better than the first, which is an extreme rarity in movies in general. However, being better than the disaster that was the first one is not that much of an achievement. And although I liked a lot of aspects of it, the movie gets in it's own way and tangles itself in a web of stories and characters that is to sticky to move smoothly through.
Until next time, see you in the center seat!
