Back in 2002 I was a mere 8 years old and was going to see my first superhero movie in theaters -
Spider-Man. I was obsessive about the character at the time. I had watched every episode of 90s Spider-Man show (the best superhero cartoon ever imo) as well as the original 1967 series. I read any Spider-Man comic I could get my hands on (I particularly loved anything that featured Electro or the Sinister Six) and even dressed as Spider-Man on several Halloweens. Its safe to say that Spider-Man is my favourite character. The original
Spider-Man movies remains, in my opinion, some of the strongest films the genre has to offer (despite the massive flaws of the 3rd). However I despised the
Amazing Spider-Man. Not simply because it was a reboot or different than the Raimi ones but because it was a poorly directed, narratively inconsistent, unoriginal, and miss-characterized from start to finish. Thus I was very skeptical, if not negative, going in to the sequel. So what did I think?
Well to start its much better than the first Amazing Spider-Man. Still far from "amazing" but certainly an improvement and a small step in the right direction.
THE GOOD:
THE TONE
The first movie failed on many levels, one of which was the tone. It tried to be dark like the Dark Knight Trilogy but also attempted to maintain the humour and goofiness of the comics and past films. Thats like placing Christopher Reeve's Superman in Man of Steel's world. It just doesn't work. Luckily the movie returns Spider-Man to his brighter more "fun" routes without dampening the emotional punches.
ELECTRO
Electro is my favourite Spider-Man villain and I found he was handled well-enough here but only after he actually became Electro (not just Max, more on that in a bit). His fight scenes with the Wall-Crawler also demonstrated a massive directorial improvement from Mark Webb whose boring action sequences in the first film were a major issue.
THE DEATH OF GWEN STACY
I've never been a Gwen Stacy fan (both in the comics and on screen) so I was happy to see her story arc finally concluded plus it brought an extra level of emotion to the film. Now bring on MJ!
THE MUSIC
While not as memorable as the original Spider-Man score nor even other superhero scores from The Dark Knight, Man of Steel, or The Avengers - the music was certainly enjoyable and worked well in the movie.
THE UNTOLD STORY
The first 5-10 minutes of this movie should have been included in the first movie but oddly weren't. Nonetheless we get a resolution to the promise of the "untold story" which was satisfying.
PLANTING THE SEEDS OF THE FUTURE
The movie introduces several characters (i.e. Felicia etc...) and things (i.e. Ock's arms etc...) which will play a part in upcoming films. The references weren't as dominant as the trailers made them out to be and fit in nicely with the film's narrative. As a fan of this universe I liked the references. Wished they kept that MJ cameo though...
THE BAD:
MAX DILLON
The portrayal of pre-Electro Max Dillon was laughable to say the least. In fact it brought back memories of Jim Carrey as Riddler in Batman Forever *shudder*
OVERUSE OF HUMOUR
Spider-Man is witty and crack jokes. Thats part of his character. However many jokes were out of place and very slap-stick.
GREEN GOBLIN & THE RHINO
Apart from the terribly bad designs of both these villains, they really aren't needed in the plot. Rather, I believe they could have saved them for later movies rather than rushing them into the third act of this one.
TOO MANY GWEN/PETER RELATIONSHIP SCENES
Much like the first movie, these scenes slowed down the narrative. There are far too many of these scenes, only a handful of which play any importance. While I'm sure Webb and co. wanted to demonstrate the bond between Peter and Gwen, it could have been handled much better.
Overall a great improvement in the rebooted series, however they are far from making a superhero movie that is as memorable, impacting, or even as good as the first 2 movies. But for the first time, in a long time, I'm cautiously optimistic about Spider-Man's future on screen.
MY RATING: 3/5
Ranking the Spider-Man movies...
1. Spider-Man 2 (5/5)
2. Spider-Man (5/5)
3. Spider-Man 3 (3.5/5)
4. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (3/5)
5. The Amazing Spider-Man (1.5/5)
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