The Not So Amazing Movie (Maybe)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

For weeks now I've been contemplating on sharing my thoughts on The Amazing Spider sequel on behalf of my own negligence to even give this movie a review, because let's face it; we've heard it all before and so by doing this I'm only adding insult to injury. 

But can this movie still be saved by those villainy critics or is it too late to catch its fall? My spidey-sense is telling me "no" however, but let's give it a shot. Don't worry though, this shouldn't take long.

Before we can start I must be frank with you. I have only seen this movie one time in theater and this movie came out in May, and here it is September. If you were a fool like me then you probably saw this movie in 3D because the trailer promised us some visually spectacular stunts; like when Electro shoots lightening at a web-slinging high school graduate in spandex. While 3D is the way to go in a movie like this, that doesn't necessarily assure you that you're going to get more for the dollar. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 did one remarkable thing to the viewer and that's wear them out before getting to the final showdown. I'm not so sure if 3D is the fault of that or if it was because the movie threw a bunch of colorful lights at you in the already exhilarating action sequences. 

This movie excelled in unnecessary action and characters which could have been solved by a task called, "trimming the fat" in the script for a more concise plot. It also didn't help this movie's case when the pacing had issues.

(The Amazing Spider-Man 2's budget... $200 million)

This movie starts out during a high speed police chase following a deranged, Russian gangster played by Paul Giamatti (and since the Internet spoiled it for me I knew this was Rhino). The city is saved again when Andrew Garfield rocking the red and blue spidey suit stops Rhino after an embarrassing slap stick humor of leaving him in the street with his pants down. It was actually good to see Spider-Man do super hero shit like fighting crime and wittingly talk back to bad guys, something that a smartass teenager with radioactive powers would do. We get to see his relation with the NYPD and how the citizens of New York City appreciate him. 

To get this record straight, I want to come forth and declare that I happen to like Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man more than Tobey pudgy-Maguire in Sam Raimi's Spider Man movies. Not to really compare the two, but Andrew just looks more the part. He's energetic, lean and can get away with Spider-Man's infamous shit-talking one liners, whereas Tobey's delivery was flat and sounded like some know-it-all Spelling-Bee champ you just want to deck in the jaw when he corrects you about something. Although Andrew Garfield looks like he just stepped off an episode of an ABC drama series or an MTV wannabe drama series, he fits the bill and looks like he belongs in the suit. 


I mean, you be the judge here...

Tobey McCakes VS Andy Garfunkel

I am aware that a little less than ten years makes a big difference in the span of time for which Sony improved on a suit that allowed more fluid action for the actor, so to be fair Tobey had more of a grueling experience than Andrew. Basically, they learned from this mistake and corrected it.

Onto the rest of the cast, because believe it or not this movie does have a cast. Emma Stone is back as Peter's sidekick girlfriend, Gwen Stacey. I felt this movie utilized her well and I was really convinced on her relationship with Spider-Man. The two had very great chemistry and without a doubt the best thing this movie had going for it. You can thank real life for that though since the two are dating, or so I'm told in all those celebrity tabloids I never bother to read except stare at the front cover of while waiting in the check out line at Walgreen's. The point is, Gwen actually did stuff in this movie and not just serve as a dimwit in distress like Kirsten Dunst.

Sally Field joins us as Peter's aunt/laundry sheriff. During the climax of this movie she's pointlessly given something to do when the power goes out in the hospital where she works. Anytime you have to give a character something to do is when you know that character is useless. Not that Aunt May is useless at all, but use when she is needed as Peter's mother figure like when she's giving him advice or telling him he's "not superman" like how they pulled it off in the other Spider Man 2 (2004). 

Jamie Fox as Electro/Max Dillion

Playing the main antagonist in The Amazing Spider Man 2 is Jamie Fox as Max Dillion or better known as Electro. When we first see Max out on the street, Spider-Man saves him and boosts his confidence as well as psychopath level. The guy is quite sad and right off the bat you have some sympathy toward him just by looking at his haircut. He also has an oddly obscure obsession for Spider-Man, that not only comes off as creepy, but quite humorous. Of course Jamie Fox does a superb job for what he was given. Electro may have looked cool I suppose, but he's nothing memorable. All I'm saying is that Electro is not a villain kids will want to go Trick or Treating as. His powers consist of morphing into electric currents and can harvest an entire electric grid that gives him the ability to blast lightening out of his hands like a Sith Lord and out of his mouth like Godzilla's atomic breath, and somehow makes him fly. It sounds all good on paper, until you see it on screen. Nonetheless, I think it was an equal match for Spider-Man and seemed to be the right choice for a villain considering the dazzling effects the filmmakers could use to make him come to life.

Dane Dehaan as Goblin/Harry Osborne

The other villain is tossed somewhere in the middle of the movie and that is Harry Osborne or Goblin played by Dane DeHaan.Very early on when the trailers were hitting YouTube I always laughed because every shot of Dane speaking his dialogue he had this damn smirk on his face as if he couldn't stop cracking up on camera. The way Peter meets up with Harry is rather sudden and it came off as though the screenwriters forgot that Peter has a friend until about 50 pages into the script, so they wrote him in there because a Spider Man sequel NEEDS two villains. Always. I've seen Dane Dehaan in other movies such as Chronicle and Killing Them Slowly and in all those movies he plays the antagonist, fueled by the same rage and same sinister evil that it makes me wonder; "does this actor have range?" Perhaps he just needs to find better roles? Nonetheless, he's a young actor with no doubt a big career ahead of him and all he needs is more experience. 

There's a scene when he's sitting at the head of a board meeting room at Oscorp and I'm not sure if he's suppose to be playing a tough guy or the spoiled brat of Oscorp's CEO, but to me he just comes off as a snooty asshole. And I'm also not sure if it was bad dialogue or how he said it, but it sounded like he was reciting bad guy lines from a play to an audience of children. Or did they use his audition tape for the role in that scene?

I could get into the issues of having two and half villains in this movie, but it doesn't take much Internet surfing to find out why and there's nothing new I can bring to the table that's different, and I'm not exactly setting cash aside for a Blue-Ray copy when there's Captain America: The Winter Solider out in stores. Besides, it's been several months since I've seen this one, so perhaps it is best we move on. As I've said from the start I wanted to keep this short and try to save this movie despite knowing there isn't much hope for recovery. 

To quote the main star in this movie, I think it speaks for what a producing mess this sequel had to suffer through thanks to studio pressure onto director Marc Webb's cut of the movie.

"It's interesting. I read a lot of reactions from people and I had to stop because I could feel I was getting away from how I felt about it. For me, I read the script that Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci wrote, and I genuinely loved it. There was this thread running through it. I think what happened was, through pre-production, production, and post-production, when you have something that works as a whole, and then you start removing portions of it - because there was even more of it than was in the final cut, and everything was related. Once you start removing things and saying, "No, that doesn't work," then the thread is broken, and it's hard to go with the flow of the story. Certain people at the studio had problems with certain parts of it, and ultimately the studio is the final say in those movies because they're the tent-poles, so you have to answer to those people." - Andrew Garfield speaking with The Daily Beast.

Apparently, a lot was chopped in the cutting room and that is why at times this movie's scenes sometimes feel abrupt. The puzzle pieces aren't aligning in the story, therefore what we got is various missing links from characters and subplots. Personally, and on behalf of others whom may feel the same way, I demand for a director's cut of the movie to be released. 

Call it wishful thinking, but maybe there's a chance after all. The Amazing Spider Man 2 is far from a near amazing movie and it had it's complications, sure, and maybe the action sequences resembled video game cut scenes so much that it took you out of the movie, but bottom line is that what really kept this movie together in my humble opinion was the web-slinger himself. His story remained clear as Peter is still learning more about what happened to his mom and dad, he's finding out about Oscorp, eventually on the brink of discovering The Sinister Six agenda. On top of all that, he's fearful of Gwen's life while he cannot help but see visions of her dad, haunting him after the last movie's promise. We're seeing your friendly neighborhood, Spider-Man go through some troubling times, only to get a lot worse. The death of his girlfriend, Gwen. Couldn't talk about this movie without bringing that up. 

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey

Morbidly, this was the best part of the movie. Not the neck snapping from the sudden jolt that stops her fall, but the whole scene in general. You knew it was coming because the Internet told us, and it's in the The Amazing Spider-Man comic book issue No. #121, I checked. But even though we knew it was going to happen, to me it was still shocking and was a very emotional piece in the movie. It was sad to see Peter and Gwen's relationship come to an end over something so stupid as an accidental whiplash of Spider-Man's own web trying to save her. The entire set up of that scene helped accomplish this. Down to the location of the clock tower, the clock's hand counting down to the inevitable death that was looming, Spider-Man fighting Goblin while also trying to help Gwen, and all the way to Hans Zimmer's score - all gave it an ominous tone. And for a while, after her death, I was beginning to think ole Spidey-boy was going to hang up the spider suit at the end and will be forced to return in the third movie, then I forgot one last thing...

The shot every trailer made sure you saw, I hadn't seen in the movie yet.

The fight nobody go to see.

Most people on the web were infuriated that they never saw Spider-Man and Rhino fight, and how the movie just cuts to black. I found myself to be the only one who didn't care because at this point, seeing credits roll on the screen was what I was hoping would happen after Peter mourns over Gwen's grave for four seasons. Some may argue that Rhino was shoehorned into this movie, but the way I figured, is that it is Marc Webb's way of providing fan service so he was like; "you want Rhino? Here's what we can do. We gave him a metal suit this time." Whether or not it was to fool fan boys into thinking Rhino was going play a part throughout the movie or not, it didn't matter because they were tricked. The reason I didn't mind this was because I understood Rhino being used as a plot device for Spider-Man. It's in that moment our beloved superhero is back in action and safety is restored to the city, which is exactly how the ending of another superhero movie went down. The Incredibles. Also, we had two villains already. Did we really need another one? I mean, poor Spider-Man does have a way of making enemies, but does all his foes have to expand the entire length of a movie? Can he not just fight one opponent and be done?

Ultimately, as long as the cut of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 we are given remains as the only version we can watch, then I doubt this movie can be saved. Take it for what it is worth however. Sony and Columbia Pictures evidently did not learn anything from the flop that was Spider Man 3 as they once again crammed too many villains into one film, and now they have set the release date for a Sinister Six spin off. I'm going to be an optimist here and say that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 will be amazing. An actual amazing, and not this schlock.