Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

I love the first Amazing Spider-Man movie. I watched it once in the theater and haven’t watched it again, so I’m mostly relying upon my crappy memory of what I think I saw rather than a true evaluation of the film, but I loved it and I don’t care. I will also never watch it again because I don’t want it ruined, but there it is, I love it.

So, going into Amazing Spider-Man 2 put me in a bit of an unfair mindset because I had elevated the sequel to be something that it could never be: a movie that would be better than the vague memories of what I loved about the first film. And while there is still some bits to love about the movie, it’s a tough sell overall. 

The Good

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are the best parts of this movie. Garfield GETS Spider-Man more than Tobey Maguire/Sam Raimi films ever did. He’s not just mopey or a love-sick puppy, Peter Parker is quick-witted and brilliant. A Spider-Man movie should make the audience laugh and there were numerous times when I found myself chuckling.

But beyond the humor, Garfield and Stone have a very believable relationship. Their banter is cute and has a Girl Friday quality to it that resonates with the audience. Yes, sometimes that relationship is exhausting in its melodrama, but that’s Spider-Man. If you can’t deal with the “will they or won’t they” tension, then you just don’t like Spider-Man deep down. At times, it wears on me and annoys me, but I get that it’s part of the trope, so that’s fine.

In terms of effects, this movie is just as good as any other that comes out today. But, I feel as if we’re at a point in film where good effects are so common place, that I can’t marvel at the technical achievements any longer. Maybe that’s my problem because I don’t have an understanding of their inner-workings, but I felt like the movie handled some action scenes well, but beyond Spider-Man saving a number of civilians during his first encounter with Electro, none of the action was particularly memorable for being good or bad.

The Bad

The villains in this film were embarrassingly bad. Jamie Foxx is a talented actor so it was tough watching him ham it up as the ridiculous scientist who turns into Electro. His motivation for hating Spider-Man is so thin that it made me wish there was no motivation at all. He has powers and goes crazy. What more do you need? Furthermore, I always cringe when villains name themselves. It’s like a friend that gives himself his own nickname; it just feels weird and wrong.

Harry Osborn started well enough, but during the pond scene with Peter, I felt like he was channeling Greg Sestero’s Mark from The Room. I love Sestero, don’t get me wrong, but that knowing, toothy laugh works on a bro like Sestero and seems strange on a weasly villain like Harry Osborn. What’s worse is that his motivation for hating Spider-Man was even more thin than Electro’s.

Then, of course, they tossed in Rhino for no reason and included the final shot of the film in the trailer for the movie, and that’s always obnoxious to me.

The villains were bad, but the needless revelations regarding Peter Parker’s origin story were worse. The film begins with a relatively long action sequence featuring Peter’s father Richard and his wife trying to flee from Oscorp agents. The action sequence hinges upon Richard sending his files to another computer before they die. And while some may find this compelling, I find file transfer screens to be more obnoxious than any other kind of tension.

Later in the film, an angry Peter Parker smashes his father’s calculator to find it filled with subway tokens. A Google search later, Peter finds an abandoned track of subway that houses an underground secret laboratory that no one has accessed since his father died. One has to assume, then, that his father somehow built all of this on his own. It’s a weird plot twist and one that doesn’t make much sense when you poke at it too much. And if the details were different (like if the calculator contained a thumb drive with the incriminating videos Peter found on his father’s subway computer) then at least 15 minutes of the movie would have been lost. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though, given how much padding is put in superhero movies these days.

As I left the theater, I was discussing this issue with my wife and I said something that I never wanted to say, “It’s only a comic book movie.” And this is a dangerous way of thinking because it excuses any problems with the film. It’s the same excuse Joel Schumacher made when people railed against his Batman movies.

But to further complicate my feelings on the weirdly complex nature of Spider-Man’s origin, I was talking to my friend Shane and said that his perception of the movie was different because he watched it with his nine year old son. His kid loved the movie and didn’t question the weird plot turns, so Shane didn’t either. So, if I put myself in the mindset of a 9-year-old, then those plot turns are strange, fun twists.

And in the grand scheme of things, isn’t that great? To willfully embrace the bizarre, goofy, weird comic book elements of a comic book movie like a child would?

So, while the origin portions have started here in the bad section of my review, I think with the right mindset, they aren’t so bad after all.

It doesn’t excuse the terrible villains, though.

The Ending (Spoilers, obviously)

For many, the ending of Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a polarizing subject. A friend of mine thought Gwen Stacy’s death occurred too early. Killing her in the second film felt wrong to people and too soon. But, that’s EXACTLY what I loved about the movie.

Fans know that Gwen will die so sitting through the first movie was difficult enough because we all wondered what would happen to her. When Harry Osborn was cast, it became more clear that she was going to die in this movie (even though Norman Osborn kills her in the comics). But, I still held out hope that she would live before I sat down in the theater.

Then, she gave her graduation speech at the beginning of the movie and the writing was on the wall.

It’s a poorly written speech and one that doesn’t drip foreshadowing so much as it is a flood of foreshadowing that washes over the audience. Every word screams “I’m dying at the end of this movie and this speech will play again at the end so remember it now.”

Yet, during the fight between Spider-Man and Osborn, I still held onto hope. They were so perfect together that she simply couldn’t die. And when she hits the floor or is caught by his web and snaps her neck or whatever exactly happened (the film doesn’t make it clear which makes her death all the more emotionally difficult), the audience feels the impact of that death. It’s tough to watch. It’s emotionally upsetting and that’s EXACTLY what it should be.

For all of the faults of the film, killing Gwen Stacy was a perfect moment because it punched the audience in the gut. It may infuriate you that they killed her, but that’s life. Sometimes we experience terrible loss at the worst, most inopportune moments and there’s nothing we can do about it. I didn’t want Gwen Stacy to die and to kill her in this film tore me apart . . . just as it tore up Peter Parker. The audience shares in his sadness and empathizes with his pain and that’s a really damn good trick that Webb pulled on us. Certainly a stronger emotional reaction than most superhero movies are able to elicit from its audience.

It may not be perfect, but it’s still a good movie and I’m glad I saw it.

But I probably won’t watch it ever again.