Viewed in
2014
Formats
Movie theater.
Premise
In the second of the Andrew Garfield franchise, Spidey attempts to keep his distance from Gwen (Emma Stone) to keep her safe, while Electro (Jamie Foxx) and Norman Osborne (Dane DeHaan) conspire to bring him down.
Liked
Web-slinging movie physics, good small moments between characters.
Disliked
Wasting Foxx and Giamatti's talents, cramming too many things.
Thoughts
A weird hodgepodge of mostly good scenes.
While donning the mask, Garfield was on point again, slinging wisecracks like spiderwebs. While sans mask, his chemistry with adorable Stone led to some very likable, cute moments. I thought the drama was well done too. The emotional payoff scenes between the romantic leads, as well as between Garfield and Sally Field, had some powerful moments.
Action-wise, they were solid scenes. The movie seemed to be at its free-ist whenever Spider-Man went skyscraper-swinging, with parabolic physics and fun camera angles. And while I didn't quite comprehend the movie logic/physics of Electro's mercurial powers, it did lead to some interesting gravity-defying aerial battles.
While the good guys were enjoyable most of the time, I couldn't say the same for the bad guys. Paul Giamatti as Rhino was underwhelming and superfluous. But the bigger waste of a talent was to strip Foxx of his personality and physical charms, just to make him into a walking rave party. His stiff CGI performance reminded me of a PG-13 Dr. Manhattan.
The other issue could be summed up with this twist on the cliche: the whole was not greater than the sum of the parts. Halfway in, I realized it the story was just a patchwork of (mostly good) moments that made no sense. Character arcs were practically non-existent, and the plot momentum sputtered as the movie tried to serve too many masters. There was one significant character development, but instead of making that a fascinating theme of the story, it was just resolved in ten minutes like a throwaway scene.
Look at the music credits for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It's a perfect microcosm of the sequel's flaws. It was a bizarre mud-ball of Hans Zimmer, Junkie XL, Pharrell and Johnny Marr. Much like the movie, where stitching romance, mumblecore, comic book pathos, explosion extravaganzas, Electro, Green Goblin and Rhino together made for a non-functioning sweater of nonsense.
