I was pretty ticked off at the first Amazing Spider-man movie for recycling most of the plot from Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man, but That movie's great in comparison to its sequel. I should have been thankful for what I had.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a bad movie. It’s not all bad, but most of the things that are good about it are just things that were already in the first Amazing Spider-Man. What’s new here is a bizarre tone, some incredibly shoddy screenwriting and an ending that ruins the core message of the movie, rendering the whole thing totally pointless.
I wish people would stop saying that these new Spider-Man movies are better then the other ones. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 exhibits most of the exact same problems people have with the first set of movies. There are too many villains, the romance between our leads is constantly being put into contention for stupid arbitrary reasons and the movie can’t decide weather it’s supposed to be campy and fun, or dark and serious.
Seriously, this is so much worse then Spider-Man 3. Sam Raimi’s great talent has always been mixing goofy and dark in a weird way that works, that’s what he did in the Evil Dead movies, and he accomplished it to a lesser effect in spider-Man. In The Amazing Spider-Man the movies bits of silliness and seriousness just sort of cause whiplash in the viewer. We jump cut between spastic silly moments, like anytime Jaime Fox is on screen to darker brooding moments like Spider-Man being haunted by a dead man’s memory without any kind of melding crossover at all.
Then there’s the ending, which is terrible. The movies entire plot is about Parker and Gwen Stacy trying to save their relationship, and the main message is really about love, and how it’s worth going out of your way for. That is the one thing audiences were supposed to take away, but they messed that up. (Spoilers) at the end of the movie Gwen Stacy dies and we see a short montage of Spidey getting over her death; This changes the message of the movie from, “Love is worth going out of your way to fight for,” into, “Love is doomed, but you’ll get over it pretty quickly.” And no, I don’t care if Stacy dies in the comics; her death totally ruins one of the big good aspects of the movie. I don’t mind it if movies have sad endings, but only if they further the movies message or tone. This sad ending only serves to make everything worse.
Not even the Villains work. Not a single one of the three main villains does anything other then suck. Electro is silly, his origin makes no sense, and neither does his motivation; and Green Goblin’s motivations don’t make sense either. He seems to only do things that are obviously self-destructive. Rhino is perhaps the most entertaining of the films villains, just because he’s so over the top that it’s laughable, but he’s hardly in the movie. The movie never takes the time to develop it’s villains, I actually wonder if everything would’ve been better as just a love story between Parker and Stacy because that’s the only conflict in it that makes any freaking sense.
There are good aspects of this movie. Garfield makes a good Spidey and Stone makes a good strong female lead and the two have a lot of chemistry. There’s also the action, which is pretty fun, as are the effects. But all those good things are also in the first Amazing Spider-Man, which is the far superior movie. I would only go see this one if you’re a hardcore Spidey fan, or if you can watch a two and a half hour film with your brain firmly in the off position. It's the worst Spider-Man movie that has ever been released.
Thanks for reading! This retrospective is a slightly edited version of a review I posted on Filmcrave.com at the beginning of the summer. If you like reading movie reviews from every day schmucks like me, then it's a great place to go. If you want to get updates on Atchley-O-Saurus or you want to communicate your own opinion you can like Atchley-O-Saurus on Facebook, follow Atchley-O-Saurus on Twitter or email me at atchleyosaurus@gmail.com. Check back in the following weeks for more great reviews and articles!
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