"The Amazing Spider-Man 2" Review

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

4 out of 5 stars


Rated PG-13
Action violence throughout
A few non-gory disturbing images
with little blood
Very mild language









Though it has its share of problems and Saturday-morning-cartoon cheesiness, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" presents the best depiction of the comic book character that I have ever seen.

Those who have read the comic books know that Spider-Man is a wildly sarcastic character. While he fights the biggest super villains, he talks trash to them, which often makes them very angry. Unfortunately, this has not been translated very well into film. Sam Raimi's depiction of him in the 2000s had a couple moments of this, but one who knows the character solely off of those films would not have known that he is supposed to be sarcastic.

This changed a little bit when Sony rebooted the franchise into "The Amazing Spider-Man" in 2012. In that film, he does this several times, but in the sequel — which was released today — he does it a lot more.

Where the first film had a more intimate, darker feel with its use of cinematography and lighting, this one is more grand and light. Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) is already established as a major super hero by now, and it starts off with breathtaking shots of him swinging his web in New York City, looking for criminals to fight. The ones he encounters are met with his hilarious sarcasm, which is a big part of why I fell in love with the character in the first place.

Another reason has to do with him being a role model. He is met with a lot of adversity that he utilizes to become a better person. The first major one being his realization that he cannot be selfish with his powers when his actions cause the death of his uncle.

This film is about another piece of personal adversity he needs to sort through. At the end of the first film, Peter Parker is forced to promise his girlfriend's dying father (Denis Leary) that as long as he is a vigilante, he will stay away from her. The reason is Spider-Man will make a lot of enemies, and this could be dangerous for her.

This proves to be difficult as he and Gwen (Emma Stone) are in love, and it is too hard for them to move on. They continue seeing each other, but Peter feels so guilty that he sees images of her father in random areas. A big portion of the film is Peter figuring out what to do with himself.

The on-screen chemistry Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield two is very good. Several scenes feature them in moments of silly banter that are actually entertaining. In the end, I care about what happens to the relationship, which is exactly what the film tries to do.

After seeing it, I was super excited because for once they got the character right with the sarcasm and moral dilemmas. When I got home, I watched a YouTube video in which it was stated that a lot of critics gave poor reviews to this film. Being a critic myself, I try to stay away from websites like Rotten Tomatoes because they tend to bias my opinions. However, knowing that this film has been getting negative reviews, I decided to look it up. It currently has a 54%, which means only that amount of critics liked it.

The reason that was cited is the unfocused plotline. Peter's relationship problems are the focus at the beginning, and then there are several other things including him finding out what happened to his parents, Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan) trying to find information he desperately needs and Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) become an electric-powered mutant out for revenge.

Ultimately these plots all lead to a couple of bad guys wanting to kill Spider-Man. This would be an okay plot point if it weren't for the laziness of the writers. They could not seem to come up with a very good motivation for the villains to want to kill the hero. While Max Dillon's could be justified because of his emotional instability, the other villain is a total cry baby. Without a proper reason to want to do something so serious, the film feels like a Saturday morning cartoon, which is not the tone it was going for.

With that being said, Jamie Foxx kills it as Max Dillon. The set-up for the character is very well done, with some hilarious scenes establishing who he is. If it were not for the weak development after he becomes a super villain, he would have been an awesome bad guy.

The climax is very satisfying. Even though the villains have very weak motivations, the fight scenes in the third act are epic. They are some of the best action sequences I have ever seen in a super-hero movie.

There is something very big that happens. Without spoiling anything, it is something that affects Peter Parker. In fact, it should have affected him more. The last five minutes are about what happens after the fact, and it feels very rushed. There should have been an entire movie dealing with it.

Overall, this movie is definitely worth seeing. It does have its share of quirks and lazy writing, but the visuals and characterizations make it very entertaining.