Credible Credits
Year: 2014
Director: Marc Webb
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, and Dane DeHaan
Tagline: His Greatest Battle Begins
Synopsis: Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, faces old friends and new enemies, all while reconciling his past with what he wants for his future.
Synopsis: Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, faces old friends and new enemies, all while reconciling his past with what he wants for his future.
Review
Of all the adjectives I could use to describe The Amazing Spider-Man 2, "amazing" isn't one of them. Words like "contrived," "convoluted," "overblown," "overlong," or "mess" come to mind instead. Oh sure, it does have its good points. I'm not quite sorry I saw it. But I'm certainly not feeling excited for the inevitable third installment.
Let's start with what went wrong, then we can end with what was right.
The whole thing is just way too long. At 142 minutes, it is the longest of all the Spider-Man films to date. And you can feel it. There were moments when I just wanted things to move along and be done. Part of the problem was how incredibly predictable the whole thing was. I knew how it was going to end long before we got there: long, long before. So the film just seemed to drag.
But at the same time, too much was crammed into the story. It could be argued that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 suffers from the same problem as Spider-Man 3: too many villains. For most of the film, the way they used the three villains (Electro, Green Goblin, and Rhino) worked reasonably well. The problem was they tried to resolve two of the three villains' story lines, which meant two climaxes. Like I said, that's when it starts to feel really long.
Maybe the filmmakers realized the story was getting overlong and they needed to keep people's attention. Why else would they so haphazardly throw in the oldest action movie trope of them all: the ticking time bomb. No, it isn't an actual time bomb. But there is an actual ticking clock and a worried group of people counting down. It has absolutely nothing to do with Spider-Man or Electro. Electro only inadvertently set up the situation (kinda weak), and Spider-Man (and Gwen) unknowingly prevent the calamity (again, kinda weak). I'm not saying the "ticking time bomb" is a bad thing. It's used in countless action movies because it works. But this was not how to do it.
There was also the entire subplot with Peter's parents. They did a whole lot of buildup in the first film about the mysterious disappearance of Richard and Mary Parker and how Richard was somehow highly involved with equally mysterious goings on at Oscorp. Well, we get more mystery in this film too. And we get lots of Peter trying to figure out what happened and why they left him with Aunt May and Uncle Ben. And yes, we also finally find out just what happened. But none of it really serves much purpose in the story. It doesn't particularly forward the plot. Nor does it really have any impact on Peter's character arc (actually, I'm not entirely sure Peter had a character arc in this film, which is a major problem in and of itself). It's all just sort of tangential filler to explain why the mutant spiders affected Peter one way but would affect anyone else differently. There had to be a more efficient way to do that. After all that setup from the first film, there just wasn't much payoff.
Okay, back to the villains. Does Spider-Man just not have good villains (I'm a Batman fan personally, and he has a terrific rogues gallery)? So far the major villains in the new Spider-Man movies have basically been science experiments gone wrong. Granted, that is how Peter Parker became Spider-Man, so maybe it is poetic justice? Don't get me wrong, Electro was pretty cool. Max Dillon comes across as a pretty unstable, albeit intelligent, fellow so his setup to become a super villain works (were those his thoughts we heard being rapped in the background when he first battled Spider-Man?). But Green Goblin's setup kinda felt like the same story. Both are the products of science experiments gone wrong. Both feel irrationally slighted by Spider-Man. It works once. I'm not sure it works twice.
And that brings me to a villainous side character: Dr. Ashley Kafka. If ever a character was a cliche, it was him. Mad scientist with a thick German accent: check. Listens to classical music: check. Crazy hair and thick glasses: check. White lab coat: check. Gleefully torments characters (in this case Electro) in the name of science all while wearing a simpering smirk: check. Seriously? I groaned every second he was onscreen.
I hated the character so much I had to come home and search Wikipedia to see if he was an actual comic book character. There is a Dr. Ashley Kafka in the comics. For starters, that Dr. Kafka is female. She's not German (she's from New York). She's not a mad scientist (she's a psychologist). And she's a good character who tried to help the criminally insane and was a sometimes ally of Spider-Man. So basically the film just stole her name and gave it to the most garish cliche I've seen in recent cinema.
My last gripe (until the spoiler section) is perhaps the most unexpected. At least it surprised me. I did not like the musical score. Normally I either love the score (and rush out to buy the main themes on iTunes) or I don't really notice it at all because it simply works. This score I noticed. And I was not impressed. Which is even more mind-blowing to me because it was by Hans Zimmer, the genius behind the fantastic music to more movies than I have space to list. I'm not even sure what the problem was. It just seemed like the music was a bit ... corny. It didn't seem to suit the film or its tone at all.
So, what actually went right? Well, the casting was quite good. I really like Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker / Spider-Man. He brings just the right balance of intelligent and goofy. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is also fantastic. And the two of them have terrific chemistry. At no point do you think, now why is she with him? Their relationship just works, even when it isn't really working so well in the story. It's all believable. Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan both do a terrific job at selling their characters' falls from decent to villainous. Paul Giamatti is pretty over the top. But then that's what's required for a character called "The Rhino" who goes around in a big mechanized rhino suit.
The other good point of the film was its humor. Spider-Man is a fun character who likes to crack jokes. He is a teenager after all. There were a lot of fun moments and great lines from him and from Gwen.
Oh, and the special effects were really good. Electro is quite impressive.
As you can see, I found a lot more to criticize than to love about The Amazing Spider-Man 2. If you are a die hard Spidey fan ... sure, go see it. If you're bored and want to see a good superhero movie ... go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier and wait for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to be available through Netflix.
One more thing. How does Andrew Garfield fit all that hair under Spider-Man's mask?
***Spoiler Section***
Okay. I get why Harry Osborne is initially angry with Spider-Man. He's dying and he has reason to believe that Spider-Man's blood could heal him. He's emotionally vulnerable and desperate, so I can see why his judgment is clouded after Spider-Man refuses to help. But then he actually gets the spider venom ... and pretty much what Spider-Man feared happened: the venom transformed Harry, and not in a cool Spider-Man way. At that point, Spider-Man is pretty much validated in his refusal. From that point, Harry basically just seems to be using Spider-Man as a scapegoat for all his woes. Yes, he's kinda gone off the deep end. But considering what he goes on to do, that's pretty weak motivation. The Harry Osborne in the Sam Raimi trilogy had much better motivation for hating Spider-Man.
And what does Harry go on to do? Well, anyone who knows anything about Spider-Man knows that his main love interest ends up being Mary Jane Watson. And they also know that Gwen Stacy dies. So Gwen was basically doomed from the start of the previous film. And from the moment she starts giving her graduation speech at the beginning of the movie, you know she isn't going to live to see the credits.
Symbolism is terrific. I love a good, well-thought-out motif. But having Gwen die in a clock seems a bit heavy handed (pardon the pun). We get it; her time's up. It wasn't simply that it was in a clock, it was how they staged the whole scene. It all felt too contrived, almost manipulative.
The Peter Parker / Gwen Stacy relationship has been hands down the highlight of these movies. This doesn't exactly bode well for the third installment.
Let's start with what went wrong, then we can end with what was right.
The whole thing is just way too long. At 142 minutes, it is the longest of all the Spider-Man films to date. And you can feel it. There were moments when I just wanted things to move along and be done. Part of the problem was how incredibly predictable the whole thing was. I knew how it was going to end long before we got there: long, long before. So the film just seemed to drag.
But at the same time, too much was crammed into the story. It could be argued that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 suffers from the same problem as Spider-Man 3: too many villains. For most of the film, the way they used the three villains (Electro, Green Goblin, and Rhino) worked reasonably well. The problem was they tried to resolve two of the three villains' story lines, which meant two climaxes. Like I said, that's when it starts to feel really long.
Maybe the filmmakers realized the story was getting overlong and they needed to keep people's attention. Why else would they so haphazardly throw in the oldest action movie trope of them all: the ticking time bomb. No, it isn't an actual time bomb. But there is an actual ticking clock and a worried group of people counting down. It has absolutely nothing to do with Spider-Man or Electro. Electro only inadvertently set up the situation (kinda weak), and Spider-Man (and Gwen) unknowingly prevent the calamity (again, kinda weak). I'm not saying the "ticking time bomb" is a bad thing. It's used in countless action movies because it works. But this was not how to do it.
There was also the entire subplot with Peter's parents. They did a whole lot of buildup in the first film about the mysterious disappearance of Richard and Mary Parker and how Richard was somehow highly involved with equally mysterious goings on at Oscorp. Well, we get more mystery in this film too. And we get lots of Peter trying to figure out what happened and why they left him with Aunt May and Uncle Ben. And yes, we also finally find out just what happened. But none of it really serves much purpose in the story. It doesn't particularly forward the plot. Nor does it really have any impact on Peter's character arc (actually, I'm not entirely sure Peter had a character arc in this film, which is a major problem in and of itself). It's all just sort of tangential filler to explain why the mutant spiders affected Peter one way but would affect anyone else differently. There had to be a more efficient way to do that. After all that setup from the first film, there just wasn't much payoff.
Okay, back to the villains. Does Spider-Man just not have good villains (I'm a Batman fan personally, and he has a terrific rogues gallery)? So far the major villains in the new Spider-Man movies have basically been science experiments gone wrong. Granted, that is how Peter Parker became Spider-Man, so maybe it is poetic justice? Don't get me wrong, Electro was pretty cool. Max Dillon comes across as a pretty unstable, albeit intelligent, fellow so his setup to become a super villain works (were those his thoughts we heard being rapped in the background when he first battled Spider-Man?). But Green Goblin's setup kinda felt like the same story. Both are the products of science experiments gone wrong. Both feel irrationally slighted by Spider-Man. It works once. I'm not sure it works twice.
And that brings me to a villainous side character: Dr. Ashley Kafka. If ever a character was a cliche, it was him. Mad scientist with a thick German accent: check. Listens to classical music: check. Crazy hair and thick glasses: check. White lab coat: check. Gleefully torments characters (in this case Electro) in the name of science all while wearing a simpering smirk: check. Seriously? I groaned every second he was onscreen.
I hated the character so much I had to come home and search Wikipedia to see if he was an actual comic book character. There is a Dr. Ashley Kafka in the comics. For starters, that Dr. Kafka is female. She's not German (she's from New York). She's not a mad scientist (she's a psychologist). And she's a good character who tried to help the criminally insane and was a sometimes ally of Spider-Man. So basically the film just stole her name and gave it to the most garish cliche I've seen in recent cinema.
My last gripe (until the spoiler section) is perhaps the most unexpected. At least it surprised me. I did not like the musical score. Normally I either love the score (and rush out to buy the main themes on iTunes) or I don't really notice it at all because it simply works. This score I noticed. And I was not impressed. Which is even more mind-blowing to me because it was by Hans Zimmer, the genius behind the fantastic music to more movies than I have space to list. I'm not even sure what the problem was. It just seemed like the music was a bit ... corny. It didn't seem to suit the film or its tone at all.
So, what actually went right? Well, the casting was quite good. I really like Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker / Spider-Man. He brings just the right balance of intelligent and goofy. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is also fantastic. And the two of them have terrific chemistry. At no point do you think, now why is she with him? Their relationship just works, even when it isn't really working so well in the story. It's all believable. Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan both do a terrific job at selling their characters' falls from decent to villainous. Paul Giamatti is pretty over the top. But then that's what's required for a character called "The Rhino" who goes around in a big mechanized rhino suit.
The other good point of the film was its humor. Spider-Man is a fun character who likes to crack jokes. He is a teenager after all. There were a lot of fun moments and great lines from him and from Gwen.
Oh, and the special effects were really good. Electro is quite impressive.
As you can see, I found a lot more to criticize than to love about The Amazing Spider-Man 2. If you are a die hard Spidey fan ... sure, go see it. If you're bored and want to see a good superhero movie ... go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier and wait for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to be available through Netflix.
One more thing. How does Andrew Garfield fit all that hair under Spider-Man's mask?
***Spoiler Section***
Okay. I get why Harry Osborne is initially angry with Spider-Man. He's dying and he has reason to believe that Spider-Man's blood could heal him. He's emotionally vulnerable and desperate, so I can see why his judgment is clouded after Spider-Man refuses to help. But then he actually gets the spider venom ... and pretty much what Spider-Man feared happened: the venom transformed Harry, and not in a cool Spider-Man way. At that point, Spider-Man is pretty much validated in his refusal. From that point, Harry basically just seems to be using Spider-Man as a scapegoat for all his woes. Yes, he's kinda gone off the deep end. But considering what he goes on to do, that's pretty weak motivation. The Harry Osborne in the Sam Raimi trilogy had much better motivation for hating Spider-Man.
And what does Harry go on to do? Well, anyone who knows anything about Spider-Man knows that his main love interest ends up being Mary Jane Watson. And they also know that Gwen Stacy dies. So Gwen was basically doomed from the start of the previous film. And from the moment she starts giving her graduation speech at the beginning of the movie, you know she isn't going to live to see the credits.
Symbolism is terrific. I love a good, well-thought-out motif. But having Gwen die in a clock seems a bit heavy handed (pardon the pun). We get it; her time's up. It wasn't simply that it was in a clock, it was how they staged the whole scene. It all felt too contrived, almost manipulative.
The Peter Parker / Gwen Stacy relationship has been hands down the highlight of these movies. This doesn't exactly bode well for the third installment.
Quotable Quotes
- "We're hiding in a maintenance closet. That's the most cliche hiding place ever." -- Peter to Gwen
- "He [Max Dillon/Electro] loves Spider-Man." "That's not the vibe I was getting. I was getting the wants-to-kill-me vibe." "That's kinda what it's like to love you." Gwen and Peter
- "I'll be like a god to them." "A god named 'Sparkles'?" -- Electro and Spider-Man
- "On behalf of the fine people of New York and real rhinos everywhere, I ask you to put your mechanized paws in the air." -- Spider-Man to Rhino
ISFS
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