Peter Parker runs the gauntlet as the mysterious company Oscorp sends up a slew of super villains against him, impacting his life.
Ok, a couple of weeks late on this review (so sue me, I’ve moved and still setting up my new office…), but here we go with The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Now I enjoyed the first film (For my Amazing Spider-Man review, please click here), but like Sam Raimi’s last trilogy, Amazing Spider-Man 2 falls over in the second installment and actually in a worse way to how Spider-Man 2 did…
Just like the Tobey Maguire films, this one went off the rails with too much going on, now the web swinging and butt kicking of NORMAL crooks was cool, the special effects looked amazing, but the real enemies left me meh.
Peter Parkers (Andrew Garfield) childhood friend Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan) returns as his father, Norman Osborne (Chris Cooper) is on his death bed, to find out he is afflicted by the same genetic condition as his father that will likely kill him and is handed the research his father was close to finding a cure with.
At least Norman Osborne rightly got his time as the Goblin in the last trilogy, but this time, Chris Cooper doesn’t get any screen time beyond a death bed confession and accusation that Harry is useless and a disappointment… I was literally wondering WTF when I saw that, and would have said it, had there not been a group of 8yr old’s two rows ahead of me… (I go to the cinema in the day to get away from bloody kids, grr…) and to add insult to injury here, Chris Cooper isn’t even credited at the end of the film for his part, it was THAT small!
Now it was cool that the genetic illness killing him made him look goblin like, but c’mon, it looked shit…
And Dane DeHaan… I thought he was exceptional in Chronicle in 2012, but his portrayal of Harry Osborne was awful. I hated the character and just thought he was a whiny lil’ bitch, don’t get me started as him as the Goblin… I preferred James Franco back in Spider-Man 3…
Ok, lets move on to Electro…
/facepalm
I hated Electro (Jamie Foxx), he looks awful and even if he just wanted to be recognised by people, again, I just wanted to slap him and tell him to man up…
Can I also just say, I hate the CGI on his skin, yes, some of the effect on him fighting spidey was cool, but standing there? he looked bloody awful and that’s all I’m gonna say there… (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Now, I guess we should talk about Spidey (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) huh? Peter is still haunted by the death of Gwens father in the first film and his dying words (he told Peter to leave her to keep her safe) and Peter can’t reconcile it.
Now we all know the actors are together in real life and this comes across on screen and somewhat redeems the movie. Peter and Gwen are really sweet to watch on screen, especially on their date.
Peter and Aunt May (Sally Field) are also a joy to watch aswell and sally Field nails Aunt May much better than Rosemary Harris did in the last triilogy.
Then there’s the side story of Peter finding out more about why his parents did their midnight run for the border, leaving him with Aunt May and Uncle Ben and just HOW MUCH they were involved in the troubles at OSCORP. Now in the comics, this surfaced that they were SHIELD Agents, undercover at OSCORP to expose Norman Osborne’s genetics work. In this, the story of them leaving could have been totally left out of the film and him finding his dad’s secret lab would still have worked (and saved a not so great action scene on a plane)
Anyway… So did I like the movie? Yes, it was ok, the action scenes, for the most part, gave me a buzz and showed just HOW lythe and agile Spidey can be, but like the last trilogy, it’s trying to do too much, too quickly and shows that they really want to be part of the Avengers line, when clearly there’s nothing from Marvel to make this a thing…
On that note, would i like to see Andrew Garfields Spidey in Avengers 3? Yup! Fuck Yes in fact!
Will it happen in this humble journalists opinion? Nope…
So, Rating time…
6/10
Let’s hope the Sinister Six don’t over shadow Spidey completely in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2016
