After seeing an early preview of the movie I struggled to write up a glorious and triumphant review, I failed, four times.
I am reminded of discussion I had with an English Professor while I was in College concerning grading papers. "When grading papers you need to separate the person from the Author." Having decided there was more money to be made in Computers I stopped my ambitions of being a Professor and went into Network Engineering. Never thought her statements would stick with me.
If we separate our personal feelings for "Spider-Man" from this film how would I review this film?
In simple terms if you liked Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man reboot you will be a fan of the second movie. On the other hand if you only had let say lukewarm feelings or even a little dislike of the first movie than the second movie will not be one of your favorites. There review completed.
Okay lets take a further look at what is going on.
I am clearly in the second category, to me the first movie was too much of a rehash of the Sam Raimi trilogy story, too soon after the lack of a conclusion in Spider-Man 3. If The Amazing Spider-Man would have skipped the origin side of the story and focused on the confrontation between our web-crawler and the walking talking Lizard it would have been a much better movie. Instead we were treated to 30 to 45 of a story most people had just watched on TV a few nights before. Unfortunately this trend continues in the second film. Marc Webb and his story tellers are so determined to explain the differences in their story and the previous trilogy we get flashbacks and back story and more back story and just because we haven't had enough more back story all focusing on the differences between the first trilogy and the current story line. And just because we haven't been hit hard enough with the 2x4 there is another flash back.
Like most stories about heroes its the villains that can make or break a film or even a franchise. In the first film Rhys Ifans gives us a believable and slightly likable villain as Dr. Curt Conners/Lizard; in the second film we are introduced Max Dillon/Electro played by the usually likable Jamie Foxx. I'm really at a loss to explain what was Marc Webb's vision of Max Dillion as he is an extremely overly nerdy cartoonish character when we meet his prior to his accident, complete with overly stuffed pens and pencils in his pocket protector. By the time Max Dillion morphs into the villain Electro he again is over cartoonished. (Wow did I just make up a word.)
One of the comparisons many people will be making is The Amazing Spider-Man 2 vs. Spider-Man 3 in terms of multiple villains, in the way that neither Sand-Man's nor Venom's story was truly told in a believable way. Here in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 we are introduced to two more villains in this Universe, Rhino and Green Goblin, that's three bad-guys and one good guy. Let me say that rather than comparing this to Spider-Man 2 maybe a better comparison is to Batman and Robin, total flop. It just doesn't work. While I gave more time discussion the problems of Max Dillon/Electro we scarcely touch the stories of Green Goblin and Rhino who is on the screen for just under ten minutes all the multiple villains do is pull the story off the tracks.
In the first film Marc Webb is able to string the story along at a decent pace for all practical purposes, in the second movie there are times we bob in and out of so many different stories people without a working knowledge of the Spider-Man lore are going to be lost. It's not a way to grow your audience. This is made worse by the fact the editing is horrendous at best and beyond god awful at worst. During one fairly important scene between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey I lost counts at 15 camera flips made worse by the fact there was only the character who was doing the talking on the screen, isn't that covered in directing 101?
Andrew Garfield is more comfortable in his role as Peter Parker, a less whiney version than Tobey McGuire in the previous Trilogy, but he is neither a High School kid of say the Ultimate Spider-Man or twenty-something of the comics in the era of the New Avengers (shoot I said Avengers...)
Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey has incredible screen presence with Andrew Garfield, as an aside some should cast them is a romantic comedy together they have great chemistry. The problem here is all too real, Emma Stone is too good she steals the show when she is on the screen, and the reality she is supposed to be set dressing. The beginning of the movie sees the break up of our happy couple as fight through a life as every day Jane with her super hero Spider-man. I was actually bothered here that Gwen Stacey for the most part is taking on the Mary Jane role at the beginning of the movie, but that's because I know the lore....
When we start looking at the rest of the cast unfortunately they don't have such a connection. Aunt May played by Sally Field is extremely disappointing and you end up wondering why she is even in the film at all, let me rephrase that you wonder what the heck they are trying to tell us with here side story as a Nurse in training. Felicity Jones as Felicia (aka the Black Cat) gets completely lost along the way and none of the villains have the proper spark with our hero Spider-Man.
I really miss Denis Leary as Captain Stacey from the first film. The second movie lacked the glue that he brought to the first film.
The movie has incredibly inconsistent cinematography, some of the scenes in New York look great others not so good, some time the CGI looks good others it looks unfinished. It jokingly can be said you know where they spent their money. The problem I had was when the cinematography was good in the movie you had too much too look at and the sound track was blaring and the guy next to me was oohing and ahhing over something on another corner of the screen and the guy on the other side was like where.
To be honest I saw the film in standard definition and your typical over worked sound system its possible that on a better screen and better sound system that the movie would be marginally better. Nope didn't help.
I had never before considered wearing ear plugs in a movie theater, but I did for this movie. Its clear that Volume of the soundtrack and special effects was supposed to make up for the lack of emotion, tension and other feelings that we should of had.
I typically like Hans Zimmer and his scores for films; Gettysburg, Gladiator, the Last Samurai and Pirates of the Caribbean are some quick examples of his work. It's clear he attempted to take create a new style for this film and it bombed as far as I was concerned, too much of a fanfare and not enough a background.
The movie is too long for the story they tell and much of the story that is going on you have to wonder why its in the film at all. What's the point of Felecia in this film, what with the Aunt May story line, what's with ... There is so much stuff pushed into this movie as a viewer you have to wonder is there a point other than creating starting point to further films. Is this the Iron-Man 2 issue resurgent? I suppose the problem is if you take the redundant flash backs and back story out, drop the unneeded secondary stories, and the scenes that do nothing to advance the movie we might have enough material to make a 45 minute TV episode.
In the end had this movie not been released four weeks after Marvel Studios Captain America: The Winter Soldier and four weeks before 20th Century Fox's release of X-Men: Days of Future Past many of the flaws in this movie would be far less apparent, the problem is it isn't and the comparisons to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which at least to this reviewer is a far superior film.
If I were to grade this movie like my Professor did of my paper it barely passing, C minus at best. It's too bad we cannot truly separate our feelings for Spider-Man from this film, because I will be there with bells on for the next one in two years, I just wonder how much of the audience will be left.
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