Road to No Way Home: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

 "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014)

Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone et al return for the sequel to the first "Amazing Spider-Man." Just two short years after the premiere of the first film, we get a lot more of... everything. 

Principal photography on "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" began in February 2013 and ended in June 2013. The film stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon/Electro, Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn/Green Goblin, Campbell Scott as Richard Parker, Embeth Davidtz as Mary Parker, Felicity Jones as Felicia Hardy, Colm Feore as Donald Menken, Paul Giamatti as Alexei Sytsevich/The Rhino, Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn and Sally Field as May Parker. The film was written by Jeff Pinkner, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. It was directed by Marc Webb. "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" premiered on May 2, 2014.

Suit matters.

"The Amazing Spider-Man 2" doesn't do a lot of things right, sadly. But one thing it improves upon from the first movie is Spider-Man's costume. I did not care for it. It was too dark. The eyes were too small. They fix a lot of this in the sequel's iteration of the Spidey suit. They brighten it up. The webbing is bigger. The eyes are bigger and more expressive. I still am not a huge fan of the spider-symbol, but that is a pretty minor quibble when compared to the first one which was kind of a travesty. 

If you read my take on "The Amazing Spider-Man" (and if you haven't, I'm honestly kind of hurt),  you know that I wasn't a huge fan of Andrew Garfield's take on the web slinger. I will say I appreciated it much more in this film than I did in the first one. I really noticed it when he's in costume. This felt a lot more like Spider-Man than it did in the first film. The banter was there. The dad jokes. The constant running of the mouth. I still feel this disconnect when Garfield is Peter though. Whatever he is doing when he's Spider-Man, it just doesn't feel like he is bringing that same energy to his portrayal of Peter Parker. There were flashes where I saw more of the Peter Parker that I know and love. I really enjoyed the scene where Peter is experimenting on his webbing, seeing what he can do to try strengthen it to withstand Electro's electricity attacks. I loved him using YouTube science videos to help too. This felt like Peter Parker and I wished there were more scenes like this one.

Emma Stone continues to be the MVP of the "Amazing Spider-Man" films. She is charming and consistently a delight when she's on screen. She continues to have agency of her own. The things she does are on her terms. She's not just boiled down to being Peter's love interest. She refuses to be coddled by Peter and have her decisions taken away from her. She breaks up with him early in the film. She's ready to leave NYC and go to England to attend Oxford. She won't be relegated to the sidelines as a damsel when it comes to the battle against Electro. She goes to help even if Peter would rather she stay away.

The chemistry between Stone and Garfield was a highlight of the first film and it's the same here, if not more. The scenes featuring the two of them just crackle. One of my favorite moments in the film is when they meet up for the first time after the break up and decide to set up ground rules for their non romantic friendship. It is so freaking adorable. Anytime the two of them are onscreen together you just want it to never end. It always feels so natural. It never feels forced. It is just goddamned delightful.

This isn't going to end well.

There are lots of newcomers to the cast in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." Jamie Foxx joins as Max Dillon aka Electro. Electro is the primary antagonist of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." I'm not a huge fan of how Dillon is written in this movie or how Foxx portrays him. He's this meek, mousy mentally ill dude. He's stepped on and pushed around pretty constantly. When Spider-Man saves him at the beginning of the movie, he creates this narrative in his mind that he and Spider-Man are best friends. It is pretty flimsy overall. It gives big Jim Carrey as Edward Nygma from "Batman Forever" vibes. It feels very cliché. I wasn't a huge fan of his Electro design either. It was giving Doctor Manhattan but clothed and with electricity powers.

Dane DeHaan is the Harry Osborn of the ASM series. Do you all remember Dane DeHaan? There was a brief period of like five years where they were trying very hard to make him happen. I remember he was really good in the found footage superhero movie "Chronicle" which also starred Michael B. Jordan. He was in Luc Besson's "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets," a movie that I really wanted to enjoy but really did not. The issues I had with the Peter/Harry friendship in the Maguire Spider-Man films are present here, too. It's really difficult to sell a believable friendship between these two characters. It doesn't help that we saw nothing of Harry or heard any mention of him in the first film. So, this really does come out of nowhere. And Garfield and DeHaan have very little chemistry which doesn't help matters. DeHaan is a great actor so I will say I prefer his version of Harry to James Franco's. I definitely see some shades of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin in DeHaan's potrayal which I really appreciate.

This movie really packs in the characters. We get Paul Giamatti doing a bad Russian accent as Alexei Sytsevich. He's basically there just to set up a threequel that never came to fruition. Felicity Jones pops up as Felicia Hardy, the woman who would be the Black Cat. SNL alum, Aidy Bryant, has a little tip spot as a woman dressed up as the Statue of Liberty. Poor Sally Field gets nothing to do and it's really too bad. You have one of the best actresses of our time and you relegate her to basically a background player. I'm surprised that they didn't realize what they had. Just look at how she kills it when she and Garfield have their major one on one scene about how May raised Peter and how hurt she is that Peter seems to be so obsessed with his father. It's really powerful and I wish we had gotten more of it.

Am I blue?

The biggest problem with "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" is how overstuffed it is. It has so many plot lines going on that it can't give any of the m the space they really need to breathe. There is the story of Max Dillon. There is Norman Osborn who dies early on in the film from a disease called retroviral hyperplasia, but not before revealing that the disease is genetic and has been passed on to Harry. It's pretty clear that this version of Norman Osborn was inspired by the Ultimate Universe. That was a alternate comic line that took classic Marvel stories and re-interpreted them for a more modern audience who could enjoy them without being bogged down by the continuity of the main Marvel Universe. In the Ultimate Universe, Osborn turns into a literal goblin and by the way Norman's arm looks, it seemed like they were going in that direction. It was a little strange to me that Harry seemed to have no idea that this disease was hereditary. And it hits him really hard and fast. 

We get the return of the mystery surrounding Peter's parents. Look, I didn't love it in the first one and I don't love it here. And I think that May really hits the nail on the head. Ben and May sacrificed their lives to take care of Peter and all he cares about is his parents. I just don't really get it. I don't think the addition of Richard Parker to this story and his background at Oscorp really added much to things when all was said and done. Starting the movie off with this flashback of the Parkers on the plane was an odd choice. Paul Giamatti is completely wasted here. His role is completely unnecessary. There was no need for him to show up in this movie. It's like they just wanted to shove as much stuff into this movie. Look, Electro. Here's the Green Goblin. Oh wait, it's Felicia Hardy. You thought we were done? Oh no! It's Alistair Smythe. They're at Ravencroft! The Rhino is stampeding. It's just Team Too Much.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the action in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." I think one thing that both of these movies do really well is come up with innovative action scenes that feel like they could have been pulled straight from a Spider-Man comic book. We had the great high school fight scene featuring Stan Lee in the library with the Lizard in "The Amazing Spider-Man." The fight between Electro and Spider-Man in Times Square is on par with that scene from the first film. The way they utilize the slow-motion to illustrate Spider-Man's spider sense is well done. Spider-Man teaming up with the NYFD to hose Electro down complete with fireman's hat is fantastic. The climax at the power plant is fast paced and innovative. Electro playing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." It doesn't let up as Green Goblins shows up and we get a real bone crunching fight between he and Spider-Man in the clocktower.

Gobby.

That leads us to the most shocking moment of the entire movie and maybe one of the most shocking moments in all of the "Spider-Man" films: the death of Gwen Stacy. I mean, looking back now, it feels inevitable. Gwen Stacy's death is one of the biggest moments in all of comics, not just "Spider-Man" comics. I remember seeing set photos of Emma Stone in the iconic outfit that Gwen Stacy wore when she died. But, honestly, I just didn't think they'd pull the trigger. The two leads had so much chemistry that I just couldn't imagine them actually killing off Emma Stone. Well, it turns out I was very wrong.

I remember sitting in the theater when you hear Gwen's neck snap. It was dead silent aside from a few gasps. Up to that point, I really hadn't had that experience in a theater during a super hero film. You have to remember, this was very early on in the lifespan of the MCU. It's a truly tragic moment and I cried and I cried watching it again. Garfield is never better in these movies than when he is cradling Gwen's lifeless body. We haven't seen a lot of the "old Parker Luck" in the ASM movies up to this point, but this is a devastating example of it. 

I wasn't a huge fan of these movies overall. I think it's mainly because it's just not how I see Spider-Man. I think Andrew Garfield appearing in "Spider-Man: No Way Home" gave me more of an appreciation for his version of the wall crawler. I'd be down if the stars aligned and they decided to do "The Amazing Spider-Man 3" and give some closure to Garfield's iteration. We will see what happens.

Next up, we continue on the road with Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams and "Venom."

What do you all think? Do you think "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" is underrated? Overrated? Is it your favorite "Spider-Man" movie? Is Andrew Garfield your favorite Spider-Man? Let me know in the comments.