Almost amazing . . .
The H-Bomb: There’s something I need to confess right off the bat, I am not a big fan of director Marc Webb’s 2012 Spider-Man reboot. This isn’t entirely the movie’s fault, as Christopher Nolan’s seminal Dark Knight Trilogy has pretty much ruined all comic book movies for me. Even fanboy fap-favorites, like the Iron Man flicks and the much lauded Avengers, I just couldn’t really get into, since after the gritty realism of Nolan’s Batman movies, everything else just seemed way too cartoony for my tastes.
However, my new found coldness to comic movies aside, The Amazing Spider-Man should have appealed to me, since it took a darker and more “realistic” path after Sam Raimi’s trio of Spidey films, which looked and felt like live-action comics, but that sadly, had a whole host of issues of its own, mainly to do with its astonishingly disjointed, borderline inept screenplay.
Where do I even begin with The Not-So Amazing Spider-Man’s problems? How about that it takes half the film to tell the exact same origin story as Raimi’s 2002 original, except with some minor details changed, or that the plot thread of Spider-Man looking for his uncle’s killer is abruptly dropped and never resolved, or that Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy’s chemistry is incredibly awkward, and not in an endearing way, or that Parker is constantly doing Amazing things at school that should immediately give him away as Spider-Man, but that no one ever seems to catch on to.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. I don’t dislike the movie, but its sloppy, all-over-the-place plot and half-spun story threads have made for a far too tangled Webb… pun shamelessly intended. Anyway, my bitching aside, the film was a massive hit, and now, two years and a few hundred million dollars later, we get the requisite sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, swinging into theaters, and while it is far from perfect, I do feel that, overall, it is a considerable improvement over its predecessor.
We catch up with young Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) after he’s been leading a double life as Spider-Man for quite some time. As the TV pundits endlessly debate the pros and cons of having a masked vigilante cleaning up the city (a superhero movie cliche that got old ages ago), Parker is kept busy with such everyday stuff as graduating high school, and maintaining a relationship with his egg-headed sweetheart, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). Their relationship has become complicated, as of late, because while Peter harbors strong feelings for Gwen, he is being haunted by visions of her dead policeman daddy (Denis Leary), who in his dying moments, made Peter swear that he would stay away from his daughter.
So, to keep his mind off Gwen, Peter immerses himself in his job as a freelance photographer for the Daily Bugle, providing them with some enviable money shots of guess who… Spider-Man. He also keeps himself busy by swinging into action as his crime fighting alter-ego, and when he’s not busy stalking Gwen from a distance, he’s taking down armored car hijackers and saving little kids and their science projects from a gang of bullies.
It’s during one of these adventures that he meets Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), a socially inept electrical engineer with Oscorp who Spider-Man saves from becoming roadkill, prompting him to become obsessed with the web slinging hero… obsessed in a creepy, stalker kind of way. A lot of stalking going on in this movie. Anyhow, Max has a slight mishap at work when he falls into a vat of eels, transforming him into the electronically charged, Dr. Manhattan lookalike (minus the blue dick), Electro. He’s not a villain at first, just an electricity sucking freak who doesn’t understand what’s wrong with him, but all that changes when his second encounter with Spidey leaves him imprisoned in an Oscorp testing facility. Now, Spider-Man has become his arch-nemesis (for not remembering his name, apparently), and Max, aka Electro, will stop at nothing to get his revenge.
Meanwhile, Oscorp’s mysterious owner, Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper), has died of the disease he dedicated his life and company to developing a cure for, and has left Oscorp in the hands of his estranged son, Harry (Dane DeHaan), who has also inherited his father’s illness. Harry, as it happens, is also a childhood friend of Peter’s, and when the two meet up again, he asks Peter to set up a meeting between him and Spider-Man. Why? Because Harry knows that Spider-Man is the result of Oscorp’s cross-species experimentations, and believes that Spidey’s blood can cure his family’s disease. If Spider-Man refuses, Harry will be forced to take drastic measures to get what he wants.
While all that’s going on, Peter tries to rekindle his relationship with Gwen, since he’s apparently no longer being stalked by Denis Leary’s ghost. He also somehow finds the time to go digging into his scientist father’s shady past, and uncovers some information regarding his top secret work for Oscorp that led to his mysterious disappearance. All of this (or at least some of it) will culminate in an epic showdown that will change Spider-Man forever… sort of.
Yep, there is a lot of shit happening in this movie. In fact, I would say that the script, by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Jeff Pinkner, is just as big a mess as the previous film, with a lot of story threads that feel half baked, half formed, and overall half-assed altogether. Then there are some others, like the relationship between Peter and Gwen, that feel fully developed and properly executed. The central romance really is the heart of the film, this time, and is the thing that keeps the film mainly on track, even when all the other plot points seem to be pulling it apart. It helps that the chemistry between Garfield and Stone is much stronger this time, and makes us all the more invested in them as characters, even if the movie becomes dangerously close to turning into a romantic comedy at times.
Less successful are the plot strands dealing with Electro and Harry Osborn. It’s not that they don’t work, per se, but rather that they don’t gel together very well and don’t belong in the same movie. Both story threads fight for screen time, even after they come together for the final act, and both come off as woefully underdeveloped, as a result. It’s a shame, too, because Foxx makes for one frighteningly formidable adversary, even if he’s not exactly believable as a nebbish in the beginning. DeHaan, sporting an emo-Hitler comb-over, is delightfully douchey, yet strangely sympathetic, as Harry, though he becomes less believable when he makes a rather ghoulish transition late in the film.
I suppose I should mention that Sally Field is back as Aunt May, and fuck is she annoying. I didn’t like her… I really, really didn’t like her. I never did. However, I do like that Campbell Scott returns as Peter’s father, and is given more to do this time. How they shed light on who he was and what became of him is something the film got right.
Another thing the film got right were the visual effects, which are simply jaw dropping. When Spider-Man first went swinging and slinging around in Raimi’s movie, it was like watching a video game. Now, watching Garfield swing about and drop from the sky, it is lifelike in a way that is absolutely astounding. The scenes of Spidey swinging through NYC, as well as the movie’s exceptionally staged action sequences, including a incredible showdown in Times Square, are what event movie making should be about, and need to be scene in 3D on the largest screen available. They give this the major wow factor that the previous one lacked.
Aside from the spectacle crafted by Webb and his team of visual effects monkeys, the other main reason to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is for Garfield’s portrayal of Spider-Man, which is truly amazing. I was kind of indifferent to him last time, but this time, he is just fantastic, bringing to the role a smart ass sense of humor, along with a solid shot of genuine humanity, that makes him a hero worth rooting for. Whether he’s taunting Paul Giamatti’s underused Russian thug of a villain, or earnestly trying to keep his friend Harry from going down the inevitable dark path, Garfield’s all-too-human portrayal of this superhero is ultimately what won me over, despite the film’s many flaws.
And on that, I really must stress, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a deeply flawed film, with a scatter shot story that goes in every direction imaginable, and a number of scenes that exist only as teaser material for (sigh) the next movie. I will say, though, that the movie has a spectacular opening, a spectacular central set piece, and a spectacular finale, and it’s that abundance of spectacle, along with Garfield’s excellent performance, that keeps the film engaging despite its numerous narrative wanderings. While I wasn’t quite as amazed as I hoped I would be, I was, at the end of the day, amazed enough to want to see a part 3.
