Monday, May 5, 2014

[Review] The Amazing Spider-Man 2


Even though it was a reboot running through the motions, 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man proved to be an entertaining comic book flick with the likeable leads of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. Its sequel, The Amazing Spider-man 2 is an amazing step down. The film is slogged by a clunky and bloated narrative, lacking the focused ties of its predecessor. And stylistically, almost everything about it is considerably cheesy, and the action sequences are overly cartoony (and not in the fun way). 

It opens with some more in-depth info about about Peter's (Garfield) parents. Then it transitions to the present amid a chase scene where Spider-Man is being Spider-Man--navigating the NY streets, saving one life at a time while trying not to be late for his graduation. During the chase, he happens upon a full-nerded Jamie Foxx, who later becomes the story's main physical villain, Electro. The film revolves around Spider-Man and his mission to defeat Electro and save the city from the wrath of Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn and heir of mega-science company, Oscorp. Harry is played by newcomer Dane DeHaan, who was excellent in last year's The Place Beyond The Pines and Kill Your Darlings, but he doesn't have much solid material to work with here. Some of his emotional deliveries are laughably bad, which can mostly be blamed on the stinky script.

The love story between Peter and Gwen (Stone) is still a center point. But while it was sweet and serviceable in the first film, it becomes annoying and trite in this one. The entire thread is basically a series of repeats of the last couple scenes from the previous movie--breaking up and reuniting several times, but never fully resonating either way--Just "Oh, here we are again! Lol".

It's difficult to find any major redeeming factors in The Amazing Spiderman 2, anywhere. This thing is 140 minutes long, yet it's void of all the high points and charms from what came before it, and somehow it just seems like a giant, empty checklist of setups for the next movie. The film attempts to develop at least three different villains, and all of them end up being super un-interesting. Their antics are even unintentionally hilarious, at times.

This is a typically terrible and cringe-worthy sequel in the utmost sense. Just a big, forgettable blur--maybe even worse than that, because some of the awful moments still stick.

4/10

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