Oh
dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Where do you begin with this film? It is my
belief that you should always start a negative review of a film with a positive
point, but I am genuinely struggling to think of one when it comes to “Amazing
Spider-Man 2.” This was a film so riddled with failure, so dominated by poorly
staged, incomprehensible action sequences and so empty of any real emotion that
I am having trouble thinking of a single moment when I was truly happy with the
film.
I
suppose the minimal positives would be scenes like our introduction to the
titular hero in the film’s second action sequence, as he chases down a Russian
mobster (played by an extremely hammy Paul Giamatti) who is driving a truck
through New York, smashing through police cars and firing wildly into
passers-by. The scene itself is brilliantly executed and offers a glimpse at
what this film could have been; sure, there are some cringe-worthy shots and
you do have to wonder whether Giamatti’s hamming-up of his character was really
necessary, but as a whole this is a good sequence – maybe even great. Part of
that greatness, though, is the portrayal of Spider-Man, which carries
throughout the film, albeit more awkwardly as the run time climbs higher. Here
is the Spider-Man I imagine when I read the comic books; a Peter Parker who
cracks jokes to keep himself calm in the face of certain peril. Andrew Garfield
is, undoubtedly, the best casting decision these films have made; he carries
more weight to his performance than Tobey Maguire did, he captures the essence
of Spider-Man perfectly and he makes the film (at the very least) watchable.
Unfortunately,
there ends anything complimentary I have to say about “Amazing Spider-Man 2.”
The
key word I would use to describe this film is “overcrowded.” For a good portion
of the 142 minute run-time, there are numerous plates spinning at once; plot
threads that are either wrapped up too quickly, wrapped up poorly or not
wrapped up and are obviously intended for sequels and spin-offs. From our
opening scene involving Peter Parker’s parents, Richard and Mary (played by
Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz respectively) are handed a weighty chunk of
back story. There is a lot of a set-up, particularly with Richard’s work at the
villainous company, Oscorp; we learn that he was involved in the creation of
the spiders that turned Peter into Spider-Man, we learn that Oscorp’s CEO was
planning to do something horrifying with Richard’s work and we see Richard
Parker recording his “confession” no fewer than FOUR TIMES. The same scene, the
same video footage, is shown to us four times in different forms – and it isn’t
until the fourth time that any worthwhile information is given to us regarding
these flashbacks. The first scene involving Richard and Mary features a scuffle
on a private jet. I say scuffle, because it really wasn’t much of a fight
scene. Richard Parker is no action hero, and thankfully, the film doesn’t try
to paint him as one. This scene transitions away, and our first major plot
thread is shunted to the side for the moment.
Our
second major plot thread comes in the form of Max Dillon (played by Jamie Foxx)
– an electrical engineer employed by Oscorp. Throughout the first half hour of
the film, we see Max first as a bumbling geek who can’t believe that Spider-Man
would take the time to save someone insignificant like him from danger, then as
a creepy stalker covering the walls of his room with images of Spider-Man and
holding very uncomfortable conversations with himself, and then as the villain
Electro following an accident involving some very creepy CGI electric eels. By
the time we catch our first proper glimpse of Electro in Times Square, we are
clearly supposed to feel sympathy for him – but before this, we have seen Max
painted as an unsympathetic, almost worryingly unsettling individual. There are
ways that films can make characters like Max relatable and sympathetic and give
us a real emotional tie to them; instead, this film does nothing but make Max
into an unlikeable individual. Jamie Foxx does his best with the material, but
he struggles even before he is given a neon-blue makeover. Electro’s scenes are
well staged, particularly his initial fight with Spider-Man in Times Square,
which boasts some clever use of light and CGI; as the film progresses, however,
we see Electro more as a computer generated blob rather than an actor. The film
strips Foxx’s performance of anything worthwhile by reducing him to a cartoon
in the middle of a world of real people. It looks terrible to the naked eye,
poorly edited and completely removes you from the experience.
The
film’s third plot thread involves Harry Osborn (played by Dane DeHaan) who
returns to New York City to visit his dying father, Norman (played by Chris
Cooper). For his one scene (and, a handful of “archive footage” he pops up in
at random intervals thereafter) Chris Cooper wonderfully captures the character
of Norman Osborn. If Norman had been the major villain of the piece, I believe
we would have had a villain on the same level as Heath Ledger’s Joker and
possibly a much better film; alas, Cooper’s role is essentially a glorified
cameo that reduces Norman to an exposition dump. Harry Osborn is dying thanks
to a genetic disease that has ravaged his father; he inherits Oscorp and goes
about searching for a cure to his ailment. Throughout the film we are shown him
reconnecting with his old best friend, who just happens to be our hero. The
scenes with Garfield and DeHaan are some of the most awkward “friend talks” I
have ever seen; there is very little chemistry between the two and DeHaan’s
portrayal of Harry as “cool for the sake of cool but also slightly weird” was
very confusing. For all the crap that James Franco gets for his portrayal of
Harry in the Sam Raimi movies, at least that version of the character was grounded
in some kind of discernible role; he was the unpopular rich kid who was friends
with the awkward nerd. That makes more sense than this where DeHaan just plays
Harry as an oddball. As the film progresses, Harry’s switch to villain comes
out of left field; yes, bad things happen to him and he has every right to be
angry about them, but by the time he transforms into the Green Goblin, the
transition just starts to feel false. His actions as the Goblin will be
discussed shortly, but the make-up and presentation was genuinely quite good;
DeHaan seemed to relish the chance to play a monster and at the very least it
was a nice step away from the skateboarder look that Franco’s Harry was
accustomed to.
The
fourth plot thread this film has to offer is the relationship between Peter
Parker and Gwen Stacy (played by Emma Stone). Now, Emma Stone was the best
thing about the first “Amazing Spider-Man” film, but here something just feels
off. Sure, she manages to maintain the sweet and loveable nature of Gwen Stacy
and you can certainly tell why Peter would fall in love with her, but she is so
poorly used that there is literally nothing memorable about her performance
this time round. The couple go through the usual trope of break-up/make-up, but
then there’s a whole twist about her moving to England (which was actually from
the Stan Lee era of the comic books) and the film starts making promises you
know will be broken by the end. Peter promises to move to England with her, but
it is fairly obvious that something bad will happen to ruin these plans. There’s
also the ominous spectre of her father, Captain Stacy (played by Denis Leary),
who appears three times throughout the film, haunting Peter and reminding him
of his promise to protect Gwen by staying away from her. The last time Leary
appears during the film’s climax, you’d be a fool to not realise what was
coming; the film literally telegraphs it’s most important twist and it makes
you wonder whether Marc Webb and his crew believed audiences needed all this
build-up to the most iconic of Spider-Man images.
There’s
a few other ancillary plot threads, too. There’s a whole thing about Peter’s
aunt May (played by Sally Field) starting work as a hospital nurse and trying
to keep this a secret from Peter for reasons that are never really explained.
It is also heavily indicated throughout the film that she knows Peter is
Spider-Man, but this is thankfully never really explored. There’s also a large
section of the film set within the Ravencroft Institute, a hallmark of ‘80s/’90s
Spider-Man comics, which serves more as a set-up for the sequels and spin-offs
than anything else. During a scene at the back-end of the film, we catch a
glimpse of some Octopus arms and Vulture wings; the same glimpse given to us in
all of the film’s trailers. Now, if that had been saved for the theatrical
release then it probably would have instilled a great amount of hype in me, but
having seen it a dozen times before the film, I was let down that there was
nothing additional to the sequence to offer more teasers. There’s also a whole
section of the Richard Parker storyline involving a disused subway station and
a hidden laboratory inside a subway cart that helps Peter shed some light on
his origins. The way these changes to the mythology are handled feels
incredibly forced; the filmmakers are desperately trying to put across the idea
that Peter is Spider-Man due to some pre-ordained destiny, rather than the
original concept of “with great power comes great responsibility.” It just
feels incredibly poor, unnecessary padding to a film that is already
overflowing. There’s also something about a hostile takeover of Oscorp which
involves a handful of cameos from comic book characters. Felicia Hardy (played
by Felicity Jones) who will become the anti-heroine, Black Cat; Alistair Smythe
(played by B. J. Novak) who will invent the deadly Spider Slayers; Donald
Menken (played by Colm Feore) who was Norman Osborn’s personal assistant – all of
these roles are handed out to try and build fanboy appreciation for the project
and get people excited for the possibilities. Unlike the Marvel Cinematic
Universe movies, however, every single throwaway cameo here feels like the film
is trying too hard to earn the comic readers’ respect.
And
now, we come to the climax of the film. I felt this lengthy sequence deserved
talking about separately from everything else. The final showdown between
Spider-Man and Electro takes place at a power station, as you would expect. It
employs some clever ideas to show Spider-Man learning how to be a better hero
while taking down a super villain; it gives us some nice images to look at, it
even manages to create some sense of tension. It is, however, just a lot of
bright colours blurred together. Much like the action sequences in the dreadful
“Transformers” movies, it is nearly impossible to keep up with what is going on
in the sequence. By the time Electro fades away, an awful lot has happened
without any real explanation of its relevance; there is a whole addition
involving two planes on a collision course which feels like it is desperately
trying to emulate “The Dark Knight” and the two ferries featured in the
conclusion. In “The Dark Knight,” though, the ferries were the weak link in the
chain; the film probably would have been even better without them. Once Electro
is gone and we’ve pulled Gwen into the action, the Green Goblin arrives. In the
less than five minutes DeHaan’s Goblin appears on screen he manages to work out
that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, he attempts to kill Gwen Stacy and has a very
quick, very tense and very complicated scuffle with Spider-Man. Like the plane
scene earlier in the film, I refuse to call this scene a fight as it feels
incredibly rough and poorly staged. And then, we get the moment. The moment
which, I would argue, is the most significant moment in Spider-Man’s history –
the falling girl, the shooting of the web, the caching of the girl and the
crack. Yet, the film holds on the moment, presenting it in on-off slow-motion,
letting us know what is coming; treating us like idiots. The most important
moment in Spider-Man’s history and it feels like the film doesn’t get it; Gwen
Stacy dies, the cause of her death is shown to us as a head trauma caused by
Peter’s webs. Peter Parker kills his girlfriend. The perfect sequence, as seen
in the original issue, offers us ambiguity; was Gwen dead before the Green
Goblin threw her, or did Spider-Man’s web snagging her cause her neck to snap.
Here, it is definitive. Her head impacted due to the webbing. By trying to save
her, Spider-Man killed her. There is nothing inherently wrong with the scene,
it is a decent way to stage the death, but it left me feeling hollow
afterwards. I felt absolutely no emotion over the death of Gwen Stacy and that
should not be the case.
I’m
going to wrap this up now, as I’ve passed 2000 words and the film has already
robbed me of two-and-a-half hours of my life. I was an unapologetic fan of the
first “Amazing Spider-Man” film. I thought that it did a good job of presenting
to us an honest and powerful portrayal of the characters as shown in the comic
books. The sequel spits in the face of its predecessor, and indeed, in the face
of many Spider-Man fans. There is almost nothing of worth in this entire
presentation; there is very little emotion, no real attachment to characters
and just a lot of padding and teases for what is to come next. A lot of this
film essentially feels like an advertisement for the recently announced “Sinister
Six” spin-off. I have no problem with setting stuff like that up, but devoting
a large chunk of this film to it just feels like an absolute waste.
I
have great respect for Marc Webb; I enjoyed the first “Amazing Spider-Man” film
and was a big fan of “500 Days of Summer,” but this film just wasn’t good. Poorly
directed and poorly choreographed with some moderately inviting performances, “Amazing
Spider-Man 2” is a dull, plodding mess that misses the mark and rather than
encouraging us to return for the next instalment, does a fairly good job to
push us away instead.
2/10
