Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Reboot it.  That was Sony's decision when a deal fell through with Sam Raimi to continue the story he'd been telling with Tobey Maguire.  Instead of another trilogy featuring the same cast, Sony decided to scrub what had came before and start a brand new series re-telling Peter's origin.  Fans of the original trilogy and Spidey fans in general were not huge fans of this decision.  Despite the lackluster response to Spider-Man 3, fans wanted to see what Raimi could do to sort of redeem himself and maybe give fans a concrete ending, something the third film lacked.  Sony went ahead with their decision casting relative unknown, Andrew Garfield, in the title role and Emma Stone as his love interest Gwen Stacy.  When the first film premiered in 2012, fans and critics responded pretty positively and Sony was able to take a victory lap.  Now, it's sequel time.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 finds Peter Parker coming into his own with his powers.  Swinging around the city and taking down criminals both small-time and larger.  It's not all amazing, though.  Peter is still struggling in his relationship with Gwen.  They are still togehter despite his promise to her dying father that he would leave her out of his web slinging activities.  Peter is also trying to piece together the mystery of why his parents abandoned him.  His life complicates even further with the appearance of electricity charged villain, Max Dillon aka Electro (Jamie Foxx), and the re-appearance of his childhood friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan).  

There is a lot to like in this sequel.  The first thing is Andrew Garfield.  I never really warmed up to Tobey Maguire's portrayal of Peter, but Garfield really nails it.  There is an "aw shucks" demeanor that her brings to Peter that is really endearing and it helps make up for some of the crappy things Peter does because he is Spider-Man and he's trying to balance his personal life with the great responsibility that he shoulders as the wall crawler.  One thing I felt was really missing from the first film was Spider-Man's humor.  It made me really happy that Spider-Man's quips were back in a big way with this film.  It's how Peter copes and I felt like it was pushed down in the first film, because they were trying to make Spider-Man darker and edgier, which isn't who he really is.

The interpersonal relationships in this film are strong, too and a lot of the credit for that has to go to Emma Stone and Sally Field, who play the two most important women in Peter's life.  Garfield and Stone bring their real-life chemistry to the roles and they do a great job of portraying the angst that teenagers in love feel especially as they are confronted with life after high school and maybe going their separate ways.  Sally Field brings poise and class to the role of Aunt May.  In the past trilogy, May was sort of a story device, but they have really beefed it up and the chemistry between Field and Garfield is great.  There is a great exchange between May and Peter when she finds out that Peter has been looking into his a father.  It is a really powerful and unexpected moment between the two and it is one of my favorite in the film.

When the casting announcements started and we learned that there would be three villains people became really nervous.  Trying to shoehorn too many villains into a movie is the quickest way for a movie to go from great to mediocre.  I'm happy to say that having three villains was not an issue as far as it feeling too stuffed, but the villains were my main issue with the film.  Foxx's Electro was never really menacing.  You never felt that he was a real threat.  It all comes to the way that Foxx played him and Dillon's motivations.  They are a little too cartoony and Foxx really hams it up.  The issue with Dehaan's Harry Osborn is that the filmakers want you to care about this relationship and believe that Harry and Peter are old childhood friends, but they don't put in the time.  It takes more than just one scene of the guys skipping rocks to get an audience to care.  

I know the reviews for this film have been lukewarm, but all in all I really enjoyed it.  It is a good installment that falls victim to Iron Man 2 syndrome a little bit, where sometimes setting up the upcoming Sinister Six film causes plot and character development to take a backseat a little bit.

Grade: B+