THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (***) Directed by Marc Webb After a delay due to pure apathy and a lingering distaste for the newly rebooted Spider-Man franchise, I am going to break this film down into pros and cons then sign off with some closing thoughts WHAT WORKS: Aesthetically, there is little to complain about. The suit looks right this time. Each villain has a fair and bad-ass get-up along with general supervillainy (supervillainish?) Mojo. Marc Webb is a skilled director and gives us plenty of great spidey action. Right from the start, the film had a certain boost from new composer Hanz Zimmer. Zimmer scored TDK trilogy, Man of Steel and is scheduled to continue with Batman v Superman. All for good reason too, as Zimmer has fleshed out rich and appropriate themes for each hero he has worked on. The cast (mostly) is great. Andrew Garfield makes Spider-Man his own. There is plenty of that wicked sarcasm we love about the webslinger. Parkers ringtone is the familiar Here comes the Spider-Man theme which spidey even whistles in the movie. Marc Webb is also reminiscent of previous film, (500) Days of Summer with the troubled romance between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. The chemistry between real-life couple, Garfield and Emma Stone is also undeniable. Dane DeHaan is stellar as Harry Osborne and the Green Goblin character is well executed. Sally Field is great as always. WHAT DOESNT WORK: Jamie Foxx is a talented comedian. Hes also a talented actor, singer etc. However, once again it feels like we have an extra villain shoehorned in for the wrong reasons. His origin and backstory are rushed through and onced transformed, he becomes a one note force of destruction. There isnt anything inherently wrong about the CGI, the super powers or the costume but, because of a rushed and unoriginal origin story and Foxx doing his best impression of Christian Bales Batman, Max Dillon comes off more Arnold as Mr Freeze than Dr. Manhattan. The film is too long due to its double dose of bad guys, a problem Spider-Man has encountered before in Sam Raimis third film. Electros inclusion is unnecessary and plodding. The portrayal of Peter Parker is great to a point but ultimately, he lacks the willpower one might expect from such a legendary hero. Parkers actions are questionable to say the least and his choices directly lead to Gwens death. Because he chose to break his promise to stay away from her while refusing any co operation with Harry Osborne (an obviously powerful and desperate man) she dies tragically. Its almost as if Spider-Man never learned that, with great power comes great responsibility. Its almost as if Ben Parker never said those wise, life changing words to Peter about power and responsibility and as a result, our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man isnt really that Amazing. On the whole, TASM2 has enough flash and bang to generally satisfy. In the large pantheion of superhero films that now saturate the screen, this film cant escape its paint by numbers formula and unnecessary length to consider it in league with films lile The Avengers, The Dark Knight and Watchman, which earn their long running times. The film does appear to put Spider-Man in good position to, perhaps have another great film in the future. However, current word is that two spin-off films will come before TASM3; One to be based on the supervillain team The Sinister Six to be directed by Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods) Another film TBD. This also leaves a poor taste in my mouth because the 3 separate studios making films based on Marvel Comics are drawing deeper from their respective wells of material. Fox has seven X-Men films, two Fantastic Four pictures and a forthcoming F4 reboot. With the X-Men, Fox has no shortage of material and characters to draw from but Sony, only having Spider-Man as their headliner, will have the least impressive roster of characters at their disposal compared to Disney and Fox. Worth the watch? If youre into this kind of this of thing, yes. Wealth and fame, hes ignored. Action is his reward. Thats half right. I feel bad for Spidey. Hes getting hung out to dry, all alone over at Sony. They have to continue to squeeze him too, hanging him up there, or theyll loose him. So I guess wherever theres a hang up, well find A Spider-Man. See what I did there? :)
Posted on: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 05:26:50 +0000
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