I’ve been a Spider-Man fan all of my life. I remember being very young watching the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films, and reading the comic books. Both of which I still do. That is why the date of February 9th, 2015 changed my life forever. This was the day that Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios revealed that Spider-Man would become officially apart of Marvel’s powerhouse line of movies known as the “Marvel Cinematic Universe.” And In early May of 2016, we will witness the first appearance of Spider-Man in Marvel’s "Captain America: Civil War.” The ol’ webhead will be played by Tom Holland, who will appear in a solo film in 2017. But how did he get in that state? Well, along came a little movie that I guess Sony wasn't happy with. Which is none other than The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Produced by Sony Entertainment, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is directed by Marc Webb and stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, and Paul Giamatti. The film depicts Spider-Man doing whatever a spider can while balancing relationship problems, new foes, relationship problems, the return of old allies, relationship problems, and finding out about his deceased parents. Oh, did I mention he had relationship problems, too? In all seriousness, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 does have it’s moments. So after viewing it a fourth time, I’m here to give you my thoughts on the final installment of The Amazing Spider-Man. Keep in mind, my thoughts are completely opinionated, so please try not to get your jimmies rustled. Let’s start, shall we? We shall...
The film opens up with image trickery as it pans out of Richard Parker’s watch (which foreshadows a major event in the film) as he is packing his things and leaving Oscorp. “People will say I’m a monster for what I’ve done,” he says through a vlog, and then, is he interrupted by his son, Peter. Richard, then, nervously gets up and leaves with his wife, leaving Peter with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. As they are on an airplane, the mother seems upset and cautious about leaving Peter behind. She goes into the bathroom, and a flight attendant comes through and threatens Richard. This leads into an action scene that’s fairly suspenseful. This ends up having the plane crash and that’s the last we see of the parents. The only problem with this scene is that we hardly ever see much from Spidey's parents again… Actually, they could’ve been cut entirely and it would’ve made almost no difference whatsoever.
Anyways, the next scene opens with Spidey swinging around the city and learning that Aleksei Sytsevich is wreaking havoc on the city in a truck that is carrying super-secret Oscorp plutonium. During the chase, we are introduced to Maxwell Dillon, played by Jamie Foxx, who gets saved by Spider-Man. Spider-Man catches back up with the Russian criminal and gets a call from Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), who is ready to give her graduation speech. However, Peter ends up missing the speech, but later hears it on a harddrive near the end of the film. Still on the run, Aleksei ends up getting caught by Spider-Man, who, in a comical scene, webs his hands and pulls his pants down, revealing rhinoceros underwear… When Peter arrives at the graduation, he is greeted by his Aunt May and Gwen’s family. Gwen’s family invite Peter to get into the family photo, but is reminded of the promise that Captain Stacy gave him at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man, which he abuses like crazy, of course.
The next scene involves Peter telling Gwen they can’t be together… again… They break up, of course, and in the next scene, Spider-Man saves a kid named Jorge from some bullies and fixes his wind turbine project. He saves a stupid civilian from a lawsuit waiting to happen, and for the rest of the scene, he does his spider-thing. He stares at Gwen, and decides to go to a burning building, which seems to be popular in the Spider-Man films. The next scene involves him trying not to get caught by Aunt May, and after that, he looks at the bag his father left him and tosses it aside. Now, we come back to our villain Max, who is completely obsessed with Spider-Man. We learn it’s his birthday and it transitions back to Peter and Aunt May, arguing about the laundry. Back in Max’s life, he goes to his job at Oscorp Industries and is nagged by his boss, Alistair Smythe, who is played by that dude from The Office. Max gets into an elevator with Gwen, who also works at Oscorp, and they interact with each other. They see Spider-Man on the screen in the corner and Max boasts about him.
Now, we are introduced to Dane DeHaan’s Harry Osborn, the son of the wealthy Norman Osborn. He talks with his sick father in a pretty depressing scene that depicts a broken father/son relationship. Harry learns he has the same disease that his father has and is now beginning to get infected with it. Harry, in my opinion, could’ve been a lot better of a character, but is hardly developed at all unfortunately. Back to the movie though... After learning Norman passes away, Peter decides to go see Harry. Before he does that, we see the origin of Electro, as Max is trying to fix some electrical problems in one of the higher floors of Oscorp. He sings happy birthday to himself and is involved in an accident, causing him to become a force to be reckoned with. Now, we see Harry in a meeting with other Oscorp employees. And we are introduced to some douche played by Colm Feore, and Felicia (another character shoehorned in), who is played by Felicity Jones. We see Peter and Harry interact once more after a decade-long gap between each other and then we learn they’re being watched by Colm Feore and some generic Oscorp SWAT team.
We go back to Max who, in his Electro form, wakes up and get his clothes out of a hamper, scared out of his mind. We switch to Peter and his relationship bs with Gwen in Times Square. They have a little cute scene with each other, then we go back to Max screwing around with some cars on his way to Times Sqaure, which in his perspective, looks like the Emerald City from “The Wizard of Oz.” In Times Square, he causes a little fiasco and Spider-Man saves the day. After that skirmish, Peter is back in his bedroom and, while listening to some folk pop, does some conspiracy theory stuff about his parents, Gwen, and all that junk. We then get a poor excuse of a scene that is basically a teaser for that Sinister Six movie that’s never gonna happen, that involves Harry learning about Oscorp’s maniacal mischief… and then back to Peter listening to crappy dubstep and tweaking with his web shooters. Later, he goes back to Harry, who asks for Spider-Man’s blood. During that, Gwen looks up Max Dillon and picks up things she shouldn’t read. Then, she becomes a fugitive in the generic SWAT team’s eyes and Peter helps hide her in a closet, the most cliché hiding place she could’ve chosen, according to Peter. They have that stupid, STUPID relationship stuff again in their game of “seven minutes in heaven.”
Gwen runs to an elevator and meets the head honcho of Oscorp, Harry, who’s wearing a scarf to cover up hickeys left by his cancer-like disease. They interact for a bit, and then we cut back to Electro who is in interrogation/torture with a stereotypical German scientist, while the scientist plays the Blue Danube Waltz. Aunt May, then, finds out about Peter’s conspiracy stuff like when your mom finds the stash of Playboy magazines under the bed. Aunt May tells information about Richard Parker and tells Peter how much of a no-good, hipster jerk he is… Well, not that far, but you catch my drift… Harry and Spider-Man talk, and Harry throws a fit that Spider-Man won’t give him his blood. Then, we go back to the Smallville relationship crap when Gwen tells Peter about Oxford. Peter goes to learn about his father, and Harry learns how to get the blood for Spider-Man. Peter goes the subways with some magical tokens and watches the vlog Richard Parker made the night he left Peter. During this, Harry goes to see Electro, who is still in containment at Ravencroft. After the stupid SWAT team comes, Harry and Electro strike a deal, and begin their maniacal mischief, leaving the retarded scientist to die in the containment doohickey.
Leaving the subway, Peter gets a call from Gwen, learning that she got into Oxford. After that, Electro helps Harry get redemption against Colm Feore, who then, takes him to where the spider blood is, and Electro is left with the grid. Then, we get more Sinister Six nonsense, and we see Harry inject the blood into his arm. He then mutates into an anomaly in an actually well-done scene, and becomes the famous character known as… Beavis from Beavis & Butthe-I mean, the Green Goblin... in an exoskeleton. Back at Gwen, Spidey snatches her up and we get MORE RELATIONSHIP STUFF! YAAAAAY!!! But the film’s pacing is so complicating, that it doesn’t even bother you at this point. You just get used to it. Anyways, Electro is screwing around with the power in NYC and Spidey & Gwen (the dynamic duo) use some 4th Grade Science and the power of love to defeat Electro. And at the power plant, we get, I’ll admit, a terrific action sequence. It’s just too bad there wasn’t much build-up considering that the movie focuses on the parents, love-stuff, and setting up the Sinister Six… Anyways, Spider-Man and Gwen bicker a bit and do some stuff to defeat Electro and… stuff… After the fight, Spidey jokes that Gwen can “still make her flight” before herpes-faced Billy Id—my mistake— The Green Goblin comes a’knockin’ ‘round the place.
Gobby snatches Gwen to go drop her off a clock tower, and Spidey and The Goblin fight for a couple of minutes. Gwen falls down and dies. Yep, she smacks her head on the pavement and DIES, a throwback to Amazing Spider-Man #171. Although, there was no emotional weight for me, because the film had spent so much time on her bs and all the other junk, that I virtually just did not care. After that scene, we still have ten minutes of movie left… because we just do. Peter becomes "Spider-Man No More” for a few months, and Harry talks to “Mr. Fierce” about Sinister Six stuff and Aleksei Sytsevich “mysteriously” breaks out of prison. Peter talks with Aunt May about some stuff and Peter watches Gwen’s graduation speech, which motivates him to become Spider-Man once more… Aleksei, in his mechanical Rhino suit, wreaks havoc on the city… again… Remember that Jorge kid? He comes back into the film and decides to be an idiot and run to go stand in front of the giant Rhino. As the Rhino walks toward him, Spider-Man returns… Now, Spider-Man goes to go fight The Rhino. Ah, yes… This is gonna be epic! Explosions! Oh god, oh man!
Oh boy, this is gonna—what the heck? It’s over? S#@%!!!!
Well, that was The Amazing Spider-Man 2… Is it is the worst comic book movie ever? No… Fant4stic belongs there. This is bad, but not that bad. What’s good about it? Well, I do like Emma Stone as Gwen, Jamie Foxx as Electro, and Dane DeHaan as Harry… The action was cool… It was very well-shot and it had it’s moments. The score is great; Hans Zimmer does an excellent score, as always. And, Andrew Garfield was a really good Spider-Man. The tone was very upbeat and it fits with the Spider-Man schtick.
Now… What was wrong with it?
Oh man… A lot.
First off, I don’t like Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. I like him as Spider-Man, but not Parker. Tobey Maguire, to me, felt more like Peter. He was a goofy loser with bad luck, problems, and poverty. On Garfield’s hand… What problems?? The only problems that he faced were Gwen and trying to keep his job at Sony (HEY-OOHHHHHH) Sorry, Garfield, but you are no Peter Parker.
Another huge problem with this movie are the storylines. There’s way too many of them. And the worst thing is, the weakest plot they have is the one they spent the most time on… The on/off again relationship between Gwen and Peter. At least they have great chemistry, but they didn’t need to spend that much time on them. Another ridiculous problem are the constant easter eggs. We already knew there was going to be a Sinister Six movie… We didn’t need it shoved down our throats, though. And was all that stupid “What is this? The Future…” stuff necessary? One step forward, two steps back.
The big problem is that it just feels incoherent and ridiculously disjointed, and a lot of people don’t realize that it’s just way too bloated for its own good. It feels cut off from The Amazing Spider-Man at times and it just didn’t work for me. I really wanted to like this movie, considering it was my fourth time watching it, but I’m sorry. I can’t get into it.
So what do you think? Love the movie? Hate the movie? And are you excited for Marvel’s take on the wall-crawler?