Greetings True Believers. I truly hope this review won't piss off anyone or cause a flame war. I'll say briefly that I'm a big Spider-Man fan. I disliked Tobey Maguire in the original trilogy and tried to, but ultimately did not like the last Spider-Man film. It was too dark and as many have said, I thought it was unnecessary. What I did like was Andrew Garfield.
Coming into this film, I was sitting on the same side of the fence as Grif. Despite the updated costume, which was a great relief over the previous crappy costume, I thought this film would be the crap of all crap. I was hoping the film would fail allowing Marvel to finally reclaim the character.
From here on in, there be spoilers. Just making it clear, as if it wasn't clear enough already.
What struck me first about this film is that it's bright and colorful. Spider-Man has the updated costume and it's awesome. In fact, every scene with Spider-Man is just awesome. In fact, these scenes are so good, I was able to suspend my feelings of disappointment regarding other parts of the film that I'll discuss shortly. Let me make this point clear though. This is the Spider-Man I've always wanted to see on film. The CGI is excellent. Spidey moves better than I could have imagined and he's really good at what he does. He actually saves people, makes jokes and is super-likeable.
Andrew Garfield was awesome in the role. He must really love this character, because he completely sold me on the performance he gave. The scene where he saves the kid and fixes his project was just perfect. Likewise with the first encounter he had with Electro. Just for the way Spidey was portayed, I left after seeing it the first time thinking that this might be my favorite CBM to date. (It isn't.)
Emma Stone is also great. In fact, she's so great, I really didn't want her to die. I was hoping she wouldn't and I'm still sorry she did. I would have loved to have her in the third film just to flesh out the relationship more. As a result of her death though, I felt that the relationship was not developed enough. It needed more time.
And that, is my overall complaint for the film. It was rushed. Harry didn't need to become Goblin. While he was awesome in the film, I wish Goblin could have come in for the third part. Electro was enough of a villain for Spidey to contend with.
Electro. Yep, time to deal with him. I knew I wouldn't like the character coming into the film. His hairstyle was stupid and the costume is terrible. What I'm going to say now defines the film for me as a whole. I think this is where my review may differ from others.
This is not a realistic envisionment of Spider-Man. Electro feels just like a corny Stan Lee comic book character creation. So much of this film falls into the realm of being "unrealistic". When I saw the film the first time, I loved the fact that it was so "comic book-y". Then I saw Winter Soldier again, loved it and realized just how different it is from Spider-Man. I feel like Amazing Spider-Man 2 is in a world completely of its own. It doesn't want to be the Dark Knight, Avengers or anything that came before it. It's its own movie. I hope that makes sense.
Marc Webb has given us the Spider-Man that I think exists in his imagination. It's a Spider-Man where Gwen has to die and we don't need the relationship fully fleshed out because we've seen that in the comics and the two main characters have enough chemistry to make their love seem real. Where Electro is ultra-cheesy and absolutely different from hopefully anyone you would ever meet in your life. Where Rhino is not a main villain, just some Russian moron who painfully overacts and really poses little to no threat against our hero. These characters aren't meant to be taken seriously. They are simply small parts of the story that tells how Peter Parker fell in love and lost the woman of his dreams. Yes, Rhino sucks in the film, but did anyone out there REALLY want Rhino as a main villain? He's there as a nod to the fans. Nothing else. A cheap, cheesy nod to the fans to show that Marc Webb loves Spider-Man.
I loved the film. I actually did. I wanted Spider-Man 2 to suck horribly. I was captivated by the film as soon as I saw how Spider-Man moved and acted. For me, a good CBM is one where I want to watch it over and over again, at least for some of the scenes. Like I can watch any scene with Heath Ledger over and over again from Dark Knight, or the Hulk scenes from Avengers. I can already tell this film is filled with those scenes. If you come into the film expecting something serious or realistic, you won't get it here.
For me, I would give this film 4.5 stars. It was excellent and well worth seeing again.
So it's not a perfect film by far. For what it is though, I loved it. I can't wait to see what the third film will bring.