Having watched the Amazing Spiderman 2 I am left with a dissatisfied taste in my mouth. In a franchise that includes a villainous group called the Sinister 6 you would think that the ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ would be clearly defined that their motivations would be obvious. For me the film failed to give us villains, instead offering up a mixed bag of powered beings who had a tenuous gripe with each other. For me the blurring of these lines makes for a weaker screenplay, and film. This film is part of a trend in which villains are watered down and pitted against darker heroes. Villain actors stating “this guy I’m playing isn’t really a villain”, is fast becoming a cliché. And, for me, the genre is becoming all the weaker for it.
I think that villains fall into 5 catagories, The Bad Guy, The Manipulator, The former good guy on a path to redemption, The misunderstood villain and the psychopath. Villains provide two things, they enable us to live out our own dark fantasies – for example D Fens in Falling Down or they give us someone to loathe as they test the hero and we cheer when the hero eventually overcomes them, Game of Thrones Joffrey springs to mind. Lets have a look at Spiderman’s villains and see how they measure up, staggeringly there are examples from all 5 categories to be found in the movie.
The Bad Guy – The Bad Guy is exactly that, someone who is a criminal, someone who is bad simply because they are. In this film the bad guy role is filled by Rhino. We have no origin story, no glimpse of his motivation. He is a bad guy, nice and simple. Other movie bad guys include Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark, he’s following orders and he enjoys doing it, he’s just bad. In ASM2 however Rhino is only portrayed as unsuccessful, he is a neutered bad guy. The plutonium heist at the start of the movie is easily foiled and at the end of the movie he waits patiently whilst a small boy is removed from his rampaging path, We only see this bad guy in terms of failure, we don’t see him defeat security guards as he pulls off his heist, we don’t see his daring prison escape, we only see him fail. A bad guy who only fails and who is sensitive to the safety of an 8 year old isn’t very scary. This villain doesn’t really test the hero, so we don’t cheer at his defeat, although we do s[racial slur] when he has his trousers pulled down. Look at Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark, we don’t see an origin or motivation for him either however he is a scary guy, ruthless, cruel a man who enjoys his work a little too much. Toht is a man who, despite being physically far inferior to Indiana Jones, gains the upper hand more than once. When he is defeated at the end, we cheer.
What’s the fix? Show Rhino actually doing something other than growling “Spidah maaaan!” have him kill some cops or security guards, have him shoot Spidey in the leg. Given that a large plot device is Peter’s ability to rapidly self-heal an early wound inflicted by Rhino would establish this power and show that Rhino posed a threat. This gives us greater satisfaction when he is captured and then greater fear when he reappears. At the end of the movie have him attempt to kill the small child and have Spidey rescue the boy, again Rhino is shown as genuinely dangerous and the audience is left wanting more when the credits roll.
The Manipulator, the manipulator is a person of vision someone who wants to remake the world in their own vision, often their internal morality makes them believe they are doing good, often seeking to impose order, lesser manipulators look to increase wealth. In Star Wars this is Emperor Palpatine, in Raiders its H1tler. The manipulator is often only seen briefly, in Raiders we don’t see H1tler at all however, we know the man from history and so the audience understands who Indy is ultimately up against, in Star Wars we see the Emperor fleetingly in Empire Strikes Back. As someone who we see is the boss of Darth Vader again the context is enough to tell the audience this is not a man to be messed with. In ASM2 the Manipulator is Norman Osborn. The problem here is that Norman is not shown as an evil person, misguided yes judging by his appearance and treatment of Harry. The problem is we don’t actually see him give an order, or do anything other than tell his son that he is dying and his son is also ill. We only see Norman in the context of failed father and in the propaganda videos. We do see nefarious actions of Oscorp employees, i.e. the assassin in the flashback at the start of the film. However we also see Oscorp directors framing Harry. Given we are neither shown nor told Osborn’s evil, we only have circumstantial evidence of his guilt we don’t actually know that Norman knew of or sanctioned any of the evil acts seen in ASM and ASM2. Like H1tler we can suppose this is the case from our history with the character. Unfortunately H1tler is a much better known person that Norman Osborn to any general audience so the shorthand in Raiders is more successful. Given that I also know Norman Osborn to be a purple hood wearing goblin, and not a dying man with long fingernails and a USB stick, the character is portrayed differently enough for me to genuinely not be sure if this Norman Osborn really was pulling the strings. And if it wasn’t Norman, but was the shadowy figure in the hat, then we also haven’t seen him do anything of consequence or been shown why he is doing what he is doing. I have spent 5 hours in the ASM universe and I don’t know who is responsible for what. Bottom line, being poorly in bed for two movies isn’t very scary.
What’s the fix? Show Norman Osborn actually ordering the Parker’s deaths, even the assassin saying “Norman Osborn has paid me a lot of money to ensure you don’t survive this flight” or something would show that it was Norman was pulling the strings. Alternative fix show Norman talking to an employee or just someone who isn’t his son, show him explicitly doing something bad or enjoying seeing one of his schemes bear fruit. Maybe Norman could have pointed Harry in Peter’s direction looking to get hold of Peter’s blood the easy way?
Next up, the former good guy on a path to redemption, it appears that this is Harry Osborn. Harry is described in the film as Peter’s best friend, although they haven’t seen or communicated with each other from ages 11 – 20, and this is in the age of smart phones, facebook and e mail! Harry’s motivation is that he is ill and wants the cure. Our good guy is shown being powerful in a board meeting before skimming stones with Peter. However he is soon ranting that Spiderman won’t help him and is then quickly framed and foiled by other directors. Resorting to desperate measures he transforms into the goblin, his only act is to battle Spiderman and kill Gwen Spacy. The trouble with Harry’s arc is that he isn’t ever really a good guy, his motive is quite selfish, he wants to save himself, his urgency to do so makes little sense given his dad died at 63 and his friendship with Peter and ‘betrayal’ by Spiderman are briefly contrived plot points.
The fix? Don’t have Norman die, have him manipulate Harry into trying to save him. Norman states that Harry is smart, perhaps Harry can detect that the board aren’t desperately trying to help Norman. This makes Harry’s boardroom conflicts meaningful and his desperation to obtain the cure quickly, for his dying father, more credible. Harry working with Peter & Gwen in secret, science geeks he knew from school, makes sense. Have this relationship occur over time and Harry’s fall and ultimate blaming of Spiderman and his murder of Gwen makes sense. Once Harry is incarcerated it can be revealed that Norman was using him, which would make the dysfunctional father son relationship all the more twisted and reveal Norman’s true evil. Given the Peter/grave scene in the film showing the passage of time a few seconds of montage could easily illustrate that Peter, Harry and Gwen have been looking at a cure for several months. In addition this could be how Peter gains access to his father’s video, keeping it to himself and therefore actually betraying Harry. This fix shows Harry to be essentially good, desperate to save and please his father after his exile, his ultimate transformation is a tragedy and his murder of Gwen, someone who had lied to him, would make more dramatic sense. This also puts Harry on a collision course with Norman, earning him his redemption, which we also didn’t get in ASM2.
The misunderstood villain in this film is Electro, other misunderstood villains include Frankenstein, The Hulk or even Elsa from Frozen they are often hideous or powerful characters who draw attacks, they cannot control their power and descend into conflict, usually in self defence. This is Electro, he gains powers, scares everyone in Times Square, gets attacked by police and before you can say rubber socks he is on a rampage. The trouble is that being misunderstood is only one element of the character. He is also on a revenge mission because his power plant plans were stolen from him, and he is obsessed with Spiderman who he blames for the actions of the trigger happy policeman. Max’s transformation into Electro is simultaneously sympathetic and unsympathetic. He is a pathetic character you feel sorry for, but then his talking to a Spiderman who isn’t there in a scene that is reminiscent of Norman Bates in Psycho. His rationale for attacking Spiderman and wanting to take all the power from New York makes little sense. Electro’s transformation changes him from misunderstood villain into our fifth category Psychopath. Like Rhino, Electro is quickly captured and incarcerated only to transform into little more than a henchman (bad guy) later in the film. The Dark Knight’s Joker works as a psychopath because he doesn’t have an origin, imagine the joker having Max Dillon’s sequences before applying the makeup prior to the bank robbery scene from the Dark Knight would totally undercut his menace.
The fix? Pick an Electro origin and stick with it, either he is on a mission to get revenge on Oscorp – if so show his plans being stolen and show that recovering them is his objective. If he is just an ordinary guy in an accident show that, show an ordinary person, much like Peter, just end up on the wrong side of the law, maybe have him redeemed at the end by helping Spidey defeat the Goblin therefore becoming a hero and avenging himself on Oscorp. Or have him be a psycho, an electrical wizard that Oscorp tolerates because of his intellect but that everyone steers clear of because he is clearly unhinged. Or have him be obsessed with Spiderman and being a hero have him try to help and cause chaos leading to his showdown with Spidey – his hero. Instead of capturing Electro so early on have him escape, test his powers, have everyone think he has been defeated but he hasn’t. Just don’t show him held in captivity.
I suggest that the following slight changes would make for a better film and more credible character motivations. Electro could get his revenge before being defeated, Harry endures a terrible fall at the hands of his manipulator father and Rhino is a credible scary villain.
The need to make villains more understandable in recent times includes
1, Zod being genetically engineered to seek/protect the codex and undervalue human life
2, Trevor Slattery’s Mandarin being a stunt to cover up a Killian’s extremis mishaps
3, Khan being a manipulated weapons specialist when he was once a crazed, but charming dictator
4, Bane being a manipulated henchman instead of a tactical genius
5, Loki being a more likeable chap than anyone else in the Thor movies
I’d love to see a return to villains like Toht, Khan (TWOK) or Burke (Aliens), I don’t want to feel sorry for every villain that Spiderman punches in the face.. The reason for this is simple, every day on the news I see stories of real evil, comic book heroes are a direct response to the fears these bad people engender. Sometimes I’d like to cheer and see proper evil defeated properly it may not be reality, but then neither is getting spider powers by being bitten by a spider, its called fantasy for a reason.