It’s finally happened, the best of the best. This movie has had such a profound effect on the way I see the world that I may never recover. By that I mean, I am now from this point on a glass half empty personality who has lost the ability to enjoy the little things or to ever experience excitement ever again. This film upsets me like few others can, because I haven’t been this excited for a movie since “Spider-Man 3” when I was only a knee high. You’d have thought I’d have learnt by this point, but I shamefully admit that I have not.
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” takes place directly after the events of the first film, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has begun seeing Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) again despite her father making him promise not to do so to keep her safe. Peter has given into his love for her and as a result of breaking his promise he is dealing with inner turmoil that takes the form of Gwen Stacy’s dad photobombing peters life. Peter then breaks up with Gwen (again) and the rest of the movie is spent dealing with this romantic “web”. Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) is the former identity of the movies primary antagonist Electro whilst Harry Osborn (Dane Dehaan) serves as the secondary antagonist. The rhino (Paul Giamatti) was indeed featured on the movies banners and in the trailers but (and I used a stopwatch) he is in the movie for three and a half minutes so he isn’t even worth mentioning.
If you were to base a drinking game off of every time Peter Parker gets teary dealing with girl trouble and parent issues, you’d die, and I’d envy you. The amount of times Marc Webb tries to foist emotion upon all watching is excruciatingly obsessive and ineffective. There are around three scenes in the entire feature that elicit a genuine emotional response and even then many of them are incredibly hammy (I’m talking to you “web hand”) this isn’t a superhero movie with genuine characters that you care about and you don’t sympathise with the villains as the film expects you to. What’s the problem with villains that are evil purely out of choice? That’s one of the things that made “The Dark Knight” so refreshing, why can’t electro “just want to watch the world burn”? Why are we expected to care about a guy who couldn’t socialise with a fridge? Jamie Foxx does a fine job with what he’s given unlike Dane Dehaan as Harry Osborn. He is incredibly dry and just comes across as more of an autistic jellyfish than a serious character. “Spider-Man 3” syndrome is astoundingly prevalent in this instalment, and the incredibly weak villains are the main cause for this.
Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker’s chemistry is actually brilliant and Emma Stone especially is the very best thing about this entire movie. The way they are constantly at each other in a playful way feels very real. They lock onto each other’s subtle nuances and use it against the other in a way that can only be described as adorable. Marc Webb clearly understands how teenagers interact with one another for the most part. Emma Stone brings an unprecedented amount of charisma to her role and again shows herself off as an incredibly natural actress that you never truly believe is “acting” because of her fluidity and astounding natural fit into her role.
The special effects? Astounding. Never before has spidey’s web-slinging been so well realised in a movie and for that reason the opening scenes really got me. I had goosebumps, and I’m not shamed to admit that. It’s just a shame that these scenes show so much wasted potential as Webb clearly understands how to film Spider-Man but he’s marred that attempt with an over abundance of side plots. The fact that peter has a dad is almost completely irrelevant and merely serves as to remind us that the series maniacal corporation is… A maniacal corporation. Though this is abundantly clear already as all of the villains are spawned from there!
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” just tries too hard and falters with such regularity that it couldn’t uphold the illusion of genuine quality that films like “Pacific Rim” have. I have never stormed out of a cinema so fast and have never been so disappointed with a movie in my life, and yes, it is worse than “Spider-Man 3”
If “Godzilla” fails me, I won’t have any spirit left.
3/10
Movie Moore 