Amazing Spider-Man 2: Amazingly Irritating

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can! I know I used that line to open my review of The Amazing Spider-Man, but if the team making these flicks wants to dish out the same stuff we’ve already seen, so can I.

(MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD)

Before I get too deep into this review, let me state that I freaking love Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man/Peter Parker. His sense of humor makes him a far better Spidey than mopey Tobey Maguire, he’s got a strong, soulful side for when Pete’s feeling ground down by the whole great power/responsibility, and he just looks like Spider-Man. I just wish that he had some better movies to star in. The first Amazing Spider-Man made the mistake of forcing us to sit through Spidey’s origin again when we still remembered it from the last Spider-Man movie, but we had hopes that Spidey 2 would skip the boring stuff and get to the goodies. Instead, we get an Amazing Spider-Man 2 that’s essentially four different movies thrown into one. It’s a complete mess! All the storylines felt removed from the other, and, honestly, pointless in the big scheme of things. Since there are so many separate storylines that could easily be lifted out of the film without impacting it at all, I’m going to review each separately.

1. Electro– Electro (Jamie Foxx) is one of the many villains to show up in Amazing Spider-Man 2. Max Dillion is such a lonely, forgotten about person that you can’t help but feel sorry for the guy, but when Spider-Man saves his life and shows him the attention he’s never gotten before, he seems reinvigorated with purpose. Then he gets powers and things go to crap quickly. We do get a great scene of Spider-Man trying to calmly talk down the newly-empowered Electro in a crowded Times Square, but after that Electro becomes a generic badguy whose motives are entirely unclear, and there’s so much other junk in this flick director Marc Webb sidelines Electro in prison for over half an hour. Take note, storytellers: it’s not a good move to arbitrarily sideline a villain. It makes them seem weak and unnecessary. It’s a shame, too, because we got some glimpses of the personal storyline Electro could have had- one that deviates from the typical supervillain gaining powers & immediately becoming monstrous- but it just doesn’t deliver.
2. Peter’s Parents and Oscorp– In the midst of everything that’s going on, Marc Webb takes an excruciating amount of time to show us why Peter’s parents left when they did. Peter investigates, he searches, and he eventually finds the answer… and it’s incredibly boring. Why waste all of our time with something the audience could have inferred? Plus, the film opens with an overly-long sequence of the Parkers trying to escape their pursuers and ultimately dying for it. WHO. CARES. I don’t care what happened to Peter’s parents; they’re irrelevant for the purpose of Spider-Man, and just bog things down.
3. Harry Osborne, the Green Goblin– This sonofabitch is what really makes the movie fall apart. Harry Osborne, dying of the same made-up disease his father just died of, arrives and we’re immediately supposed to feel how special his and Peter’s friendship is even though we’ve never seen any indicator that they were friends. We’re just told they were friends, which is storytelling faux pas #1. Anyway, as you might expect, Harry eventually becomes the Green Goblin through a series of events that mostly serve as nudges and winks to future Spider-Man films, but merely drag Spidey 2 into the mud. It’s like the producers over at Sony were so anxious to try to get some of that sweet Avengers “Mega-Franchise” money that they forgot to make a good movie. Oh, and the Rhino shows up at some point, but he’s pretty much irrelevant and as removed from Electro and Green Goblin’s storylines as they are from each other. There’s one other major sticking point with the Green Goblin, but I’ll get into that in a minute.
4. Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker- Now this is a relationship people care about. Why? Because it’s been built up over the course of the previous film and throughout this one. The Gwen/Peter relationship is the most important aspect of the Amazing films, and the one element that really sets this franchise apart from the Tobey McGuire Spider-Man films. These two rock together, and actors Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield sizzle like bacon, which makes sense seeing as they’re a real-life couple. In Spidey 1 and 2, we get a lot of time of Peter and Gwen being adorable together, and balancing each other out. Peter’s all over the place, leading a dangerous double life, and Gwen brings him the stability and perspective he needs while trying to come to terms with her own bright future as a budding super-genius. Everything about these two works. It is nice to see a different kind of relationship too. Gwen knows all about Peter being Spider-Man. There’s understanding, support, and active decision-making on Gwen’s part to be in the relationship despite the dangers. AND THEN, in the final act, Amazing Spider-Man 2 craps the bed by killing her off.

“Well, that’s what happens in the comic books,” some might say. I don’t give the tiniest fly poop about what happened in the comics. Just because something happened in the comics doesn’t mean a movie needs to follow it to a T. Marc Webb and company had the opportunity to take influence from the comics, but explore another direction, and they failed miserably. Didn’t they recognize that the Gwen-Peter dynamic is what people really connected to out of this reboot? If they wanted to kill a love interest, take Mary Jane. She’s nothing but a wet blanket, she doesn’t gel with Peter at all, and I’d gladly give her up. Gwen, on the other hand, is a super smart character who repeatedly helps Peter as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Without Gwen and Pete’s relationship gelling all of this together, I really don’t care about what happens.

Spider-man is one of the most beloved and popular superheroes of today which is why it hurts so much to say, I wouldn’t recommend seeing The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It’s all over the place, over-stuffed with attempts to build a mega-franchise instead of making a good movie, and accomplishes nothing other than making me not give a damn about any Amazing Spider-Man movies hereafter.

Action Rating: Who cares? They killed Gwen Stacy.

This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!