Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-MAn 2

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014): Peter Parker runs the gauntlet as the mysterious company Oscorp sends up a slew of supervillains against him, impacting on his life.

Wait, what? That's the IMDB synopsis. Is that a typo at the end? Or am I the only one who thinks that's grammatically incorrect? Whatever. Moving on. If you were looking for someone who's favorite superhero is Spider-Man, you've come to the right place. Ever since I was a little kid I've been utterly fascinated by this hero. I still am. So it's with a heavy heart that I say this: Dear Sony. For the love of God, give up the rights to this franchise. Let Spider-Man get included in The Avengers storyline. Please. PLEASE. It's been too long since you made an awesome Spider-Man movie! Let someone else take a whack at it! Oh wait, this franchise generates hundreds of millions of dollars for you still? Damn you, logical business decisions.....

So, the action sequences in this movie? Outstanding. Even though all of the scenes with Electro were purely CGI porn, they were still great to look at. Here's the problem though: there's only about 30 minutes of action in this movie. In a 142 minute film. Damn, 142 minutes???? Wow felt longer than that. The other 110+ minutes of this film? Unnecessary and rather generic setup. Ok, the storyline between Gwen Stacey and Peter Parker was great. I'll give them that for sure. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have phenomenal chemistry, but it definitely helps that they are a thing off the screen too. Honestly I prefer Garfield's charming and witty Peter Parker over Maguire's nerdy and awkward Pete. He's really won me over with his performance, and Stone's performance as Stacey is MASSIVELY better than Dunst's damsel-in-distress Mary Jane (though that was in part due to the writers of the original trilogy) but the problem with this movie is that everything else about it is sooooooo generic. Jamie Foxx is incredibly forgettable as Electro, and there's a huge backstory for him that could be summed up with one sentence: generic comic book villain. There. Just saved you about 45 minutes of movie time. And sadly Foxx did little to improve the situation. Dane DeHaan tried to make Harry Osborne a bit more interesting, but he too was pretty generic. Really he was just very poorly written. They both were, but at least DeHaan got to channel his apex predator self (WHOA CHRONICLE REFERENCE) in the third act of the film. And Paul Giamatti? He was nothing more than a few grunts at the beginning and then end of the movie. Ya, if you haven't heard yet, you know that big battle with Rhino that's in all of the trailers? Ya you've already seen the entire battle. So don't be looking forward to a big showdown with him until The Amazing Spider-Man 3! YA! F*CK YOU SONY!

Ok, there was one awesome thing this movie got right though. And that was showing off the citizens of NYC. As I think about it, really all of the Spider-Man movies have had at least one moment where they show the citizens standing up and helping out Spidey. But I don't they've gotten involved as much as they have here. One scene involving a small child actually made me cry. Seriously! The tears legitimately came out of nowhere because the scene was so fast but damn! All Marvel movies need to take Spider-Man's lead. I mean after all they all level NYC somehow so might as well show the civilians being awesome right? Also while the movie did mostly stay in the world of generic there was one thing that happened that was anything but generic. A twist, so to say. Obviously I'm not going to give it away but I will say that I didn't think they were going to do it until they did it and it led to one of the best moments of the movie.

In conclusion, I'm still waiting for any Spider-Man movie to rival Spider-Man 2. And from generic villains with generic backgrounds to spectacular CGI action sequences, I can safely say that this movie is not it. However, was it enjoyable? Yes. Is it worth the price of admission? Maybe matinee price, but definitely not full price. You should see it a theater, just.....temper your expectations a bit. Sigh.....

The Critique: A wildly mixed bag. Spectacular but brief action sequences surrounded by overly generic setup of villains make this movie above average at best. I'm gonna go cry now.....

The Recommendation: The action is worth seeing in a movie theater, but save some money and see it at matinee price.

Rewatchability: Moderately Low

The Verdict: 6/10 Above Average


Photo Credit
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