The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

I feel bad for this movie, everyone hates it, and I mean everyone, and I feel bad for it because I got the feeling that regardless of the circumstances, the people involved really wanted to make a good movie, not the people at Sony mind you, but the director and cast, they all wanted to make something good and they listened to the criticisms of the previous film and apparently it's even worse now, no matter what, people are always going to hate on this franchise no matter what they change or what they do, everyone complained about the "dark tone" in the first film so they made it more light hearted and then those same people complained that the film was a different tone from the first film. So according to these people, even if a film has made a mistake, they'd rather they continue with that mistake rather than correct it, it's called constructive criticism people, you complain and they fix the problems, if you're still going to complain then you're nothing more than a bitch, fuck you.

Whatever, let's just get this over with, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) has the cast & crew return from the first film but now with Robert Orci & Alex Kurtzman writing the script along with Jeff Pinker. The story is that Gwen & Peter have graduated from school and Gwen will be heading off to England for university, meanwhile Peter's former best friend Harry Osborne has returned home needing Spider-Man's help or else he will die. Also Electro is there as well and hates Spider-Man.

Okay so I want to start by saying, I understand the problems with this film, it's chocked full of them, mostly with the villains, they don't get the proper amount of focus and a lot of their development is rushed, again, Spider-Man villains suck, I don't care if these ones suck. Except I feel like people's problems with this film are greatly exaggerated, because there are plenty of stuck up fanboys of the Raimi films who never even gave these films a chance so they took every problem in the film and exaggerated how bad it is by about a billion. Fact is, Sony fucked up, they asked for too much from Marc Webb and frankly he did the best with what he had to, because that's the problem, a lot of stuff that is in this film is because he had to, he had to have these villains in there because Sony says so, they have full control over this film so he doesn't have a choice. Let's start with Rhino seeing as he gets very little screentime...that's what I wanted, when they announced Rhino was in this I hoped he was going to be a small time villain and given more focus in a sequel, and that is exactly what I got, I got what I wanted, so I'm happy.

Then there is Electro, the biggest problem that people have with him is how rushed he is, he instantly loves Spider-Man and then he instantly hates Spider-Man, this is still a problem, but it's a developed problem. Even before he becomes a villain they establish how obsessive and strange he is, Spider-Man saves him and he thinks of him as his best friend, Gwen remembers his name and he instantly is attracted to her, Spider-Man steals his thunder (Yes that was a pun) he instantly hates him, when Harry says he needs him he instantly is friends with him. Fact is considering what Webb had to work with he did a great job of setting up this character, would it have been better if they had properly set him up? Yes but I think the development was very well handled for what cards were in their hands.

Then there is Green Goblin...oh boy do I not like the Green Goblin, first of all I love Dane Dehaan and his portrayal as Harry was great, but his turn into the Green Goblin was so rushed and so forced with no foreshadowing and came down to a number of plot holes and conveniences, like how he just so happened to be where the Goblin suit is and how he instantly knew how to use it or that it just so happened to fit him. Also the design of the Goblin is terrible, he looks ridiculous, and not in a good way.

But overall I think the villains were much better handled than in Spider-Man 3 and for one very important reason, they are all connected through an established theme, and that theme being abandonment. Electro feels abandoned by Spider-Man and society and Harry feels abandoned by Spider-Man and his father, they both have an actual connection established, unlike Spider-Man 3 where it was just two bad guys teaming up because...they're bad guys! Hell, this theme is even connected to Peter and how he feels abandoned by his parents and soon Gwen will be leaving him, so at least the movie is capable of focusing on something, that's definitely and improvement over the last film. And yes I know the Rhino doesn't fit this theme but he does jackshit in the movie anyway, I give it a pass.

Furthermore this film has without a doubt the best Spider-Man in all 5 films, like I said before, Andrew Garfield is spectacular (no wait, wrong Spider-Man series) he's amazing (there ya go) as Spider-Man, he has the personality and appearance of Spider-Man and you can tell Andrew Garfield is loving this role, also the design of the suit has greatly improved from the last film. But I think what I love most about this portrayal is how Spider-Man is represented as a hero, I've heard people complain about how he tells jokes rather than stopping the villains but after rewatching the film that literally only happens in one shot, the rest of the time he always takes his job seriously and the most important thing to him is making sure people are safe, whether it be stopping a bus, walking a kid home from school or talking a dangerous person out of a bad situation, he'll always confront the problem without necessarily resorting to violence, and that's the thing, in this film Spider-Man will always try to solve a problem with his words first and his biggest priority is making sure other people don't get hurt, even when he has to go out of his way, which is why in the end you see how big of an impact it is for him to quit being Spider-Man but also his return to Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility, and instead of wasting an entire movie having him relearn this lesson *cough* Spider-Man 2 *cough* he accepts it within the span 5 minutes of screen time and put his grieving in a montage, which makes sense. I don't like it. But it makes sense.

Then there is Gwen's death, oh boy is this gonna be a doozy...now I've heard people complain about how this moment was handled and how ineffective it was do to the circumstances, that being that Spider-Man does everything in his power to prevent Gwen from dying so the fact that she dies anyway and Peter goes on this big guilt trip and quits being Spider-Man. So this is why I think this moment works really well, first off, the fact that she dies anyway despite Peter doing everything in his power to prevent that is why it's so affective, because no matter how hard he tried it's something that he wasn't strong enough to prevent, but with that being said, that doesn't instantly cure him of any guilt from the situation, after all he's the reason why Gwen was even with him at the time and just put yourself in his shoes, you're a superhero, you're job is to save people, you do it on a daily basis, so when you can't even protect the person you love more than anything, of course that's going to come with a big burden, you're obviously going to feel guilty about it as if you failed and this is the price you pay, so that's why I think it's an affective moment because he now carries the weight and guilt of three dead people (Uncle Ben, Gwen's dad & Gwen) that's gonna have a big impact on you...that is until 5 minutes later when he's Spider-Man again...man fuck that montage.

So my final rating for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (As controversial as it might be) is a 9/10.

So those were my 5 reviews for the 5 Spider-Man films, I hope you enjoyed and don't disagree with me too much, but hell, we all love Spider-Man so CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG!?

-Danny