Amazing Spider-Man 2 review with spoilers!

[huedell]

I've roasted many a movie on this site and it's so interesting to me when something I write gets a provocative response (or completely ignored for that matter.) I don't think a single member even acknowledged my scathing review of Captain America.

I'm not looking for a correct combo, what ever that is, I'm looking for good storytelling, originality, and consistency and when a movie can't do any of those things than it just isn't good, no matter who the central character is. I don't think it's too much to ask for a coherent story that includes a beginning, middle and end. That's basic writing and the foundation of good writing. Oddly enough, I have zero interest in Spiderman as a character. I get what makes him popular to the general public is that he's Marvels version of Clark Kent. He's the kid who doesn't quite fit in with everyone else. He's like every child who ever went through an awkward phase and everyone can relate to that because everyone has had those feelings at one time or another. I think Peter Parker as Spiderman (the geeky kid as the world sees him vs. a Spectacular Super Hero that no one knows he is) is interesting but I don't think Spiderman as just a Super Hero is all that captivating.In fact that's the one original idea that these new Spidey movies have. They took out all the isolation in Peter's life and made him a pretty popular guy. I mean did anyone look at the Garfield Parker and go "aww...poor kid" Sure his parents disappeared and but he had two incredible relatives step in for them. He's got friends, a nice girlfriend, is incredibly well adjusted, well liked, and pretty darn cool which is kind of the opposite of what PP is in the comics especially in his younger years when he's in school. Uncle Ben's death makes him a better person in the comics and the McGuire movies but here he's kind of over it pretty fast. Heck he spends more time in the new movies pining after his parents who disappeared when he was five than he does morning the Uncle who raised him like his own son. Now the thing with Spideman is that the teasing he gets in school, the not fitting in, causing the death of his Uncle which results in Spiderman having ethics excuse all his quips and banter when he's Spiderman. He's taking out his aggression and altering his personality as Spiderman in ways he could never do as Parker and we root for that because he's doing what we all would like to do but can not. Take all that backstory away from Peter Parker like the ASM does, make him the well adjusted, slightly genius, all American kid that doesn't seem to care that his actions have consequences and suddenly Spidermans a bit of a prick.

The thing with Spiderman 2 isn't that I didn't like it because it wasn't true to the source material, I didn't like it because it was poorly written and as I've said before, there is no excuse for bad writing in this day and age. I don't think it's possible to suck the creative life out of something that is essentially the second sequel of a rebooted franchise from only 10 years ago that rehashed characters and plots from different comic hero movies from 20 years ago. How much creativity can you expect from that in the first place. Every idea in that movie was done before and done better. We've already done the Green Goblin in the Toby McGuire series. As mentioned earlier, we saw Electro on screen in the 90's when he was played by Jim Carrey in Batman Forever. His look has been done in Lawn Mower Man and Watchman and Star Wars. He fell into a vat like the Joker in Burtons Batman. And ok, so we've never seen Electro done in a movie before but Spiderman 3 gave us another villain that had no business being the main villain in a Spiderman movie when they did the Sandman way back in Spiderman 3. How many creative ways can you say With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility?

In case anyone missed it, Cracked comes through once again:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things...ny-damn-sense/

Really? Gwen's speech was all about death? Baloney. Grade A, man.

Gwen's speech was about living and dying on your own terms. That sentiment is a RALLY CRY... for WARRIORS... and "perfect" for graduating students going out into the "real world" as real adults. High school students should BE so lucky to have a speech like that at their commencements. Any other interpretation of this speech in the film's story-telling context is biased by a jaded superhero fan/critic's mindset.

Surely there's some good points in your post AND in the Cracked article. You come across as quite intelligent---as does the guy at Cracked that wrote the article you linked. But intelligence still leaves room for what I see as unneeded bias from jaded hardcore-comic-nerds on the state of things like ASM2.

Hey, I'm willing to believe that a lot of other superhero movies are useless. Like--hey, the flat, dry third Nolan Bat-flick---the first one that is also dry but is even worse for having the ol' "gas the whole city" approach similar to the truly lame ASM---an approach that seemed at home in Burton's more one-dimensional Batman film. A simple "gas the city" plot? Why not? The movie is disposable fare anyway. Speaking of the classic disposable superhero films, people bag on me for liking Superman III, but really, all I've ever done as far as Superman III is point out that, of the Reeve films, it is the most consistent tonally, and that it had a better ending than the first Reeve film. But ultimately, I think all four Reeve films are SUBPAR projects that were functional at the time, but look embarrassing compared to a project like ASM2 or most of the DCAU--etc etc.

Essentially: On the whole, live-action superhero movies in my opinion have mostly been "lame" or worse.

We're certainly at a weird place in comicbook hero history where a movie like the Avengers is so heavily lauded and then ASM2 is so harshly scrutinized that it loses what luster it rightly deserves.

P.S.---

I'm not looking for a correct combo, what ever that is, I'm looking for good storytelling, originality, and consistency

Sounds like a "combo" to me---and, yes that combo is hard to define--a "je ne sais quoi" or what-have-you
P.S.S.---NOTHING in Batman Forever was "done better" than ASM2 ha

[spacecaps]

I've roasted many a movie on this site and it's so interesting to me when something I write gets a provocative response (or completely ignored for that matter.) I don't think a single member even acknowledged my scathing review of Captain America.

I'm not looking for a correct combo, what ever that is, I'm looking for good storytelling, originality, and consistency and when a movie can't do any of those things than it just isn't good, no matter who the central character is. I don't think it's too much to ask for a coherent story that includes a beginning, middle and end. That's basic writing and the foundation of good writing. Oddly enough, I have zero interest in Spiderman as a character. I get what makes him popular to the general public is that he's Marvels version of Clark Kent. He's the kid who doesn't quite fit in with everyone else. He's like every child who ever went through an awkward phase and everyone can relate to that because everyone has had those feelings at one time or another. I think Peter Parker as Spiderman (the geeky kid as the world sees him vs. a Spectacular Super Hero that no one knows he is) is interesting but I don't think Spiderman as just a Super Hero is all that captivating.In fact that's the one original idea that these new Spidey movies have. They took out all the isolation in Peter's life and made him a pretty popular guy. I mean did anyone look at the Garfield Parker and go "aww...poor kid" Sure his parents disappeared and but he had two incredible relatives step in for them. He's got friends, a nice girlfriend, is incredibly well adjusted, well liked, and pretty darn cool which is kind of the opposite of what PP is in the comics especially in his younger years when he's in school. Uncle Ben's death makes him a better person in the comics and the McGuire movies but here he's kind of over it pretty fast. Heck he spends more time in the new movies pining after his parents who disappeared when he was five than he does morning the Uncle who raised him like his own son. Now the thing with Spideman is that the teasing he gets in school, the not fitting in, causing the death of his Uncle which results in Spiderman having ethics excuse all his quips and banter when he's Spiderman. He's taking out his aggression and altering his personality as Spiderman in ways he could never do as Parker and we root for that because he's doing what we all would like to do but can not. Take all that backstory away from Peter Parker like the ASM does, make him the well adjusted, slightly genius, all American kid that doesn't seem to care that his actions have consequences and suddenly Spidermans a bit of a prick.

The thing with Spiderman 2 isn't that I didn't like it because it wasn't true to the source material, I didn't like it because it was poorly written and as I've said before, there is no excuse for bad writing in this day and age. I don't think it's possible to suck the creative life out of something that is essentially the second sequel of a rebooted franchise from only 10 years ago that rehashed characters and plots from different comic hero movies from 20 years ago. How much creativity can you expect from that in the first place. Every idea in that movie was done before and done better. We've already done the Green Goblin in the Toby McGuire series. As mentioned earlier, we saw Electro on screen in the 90's when he was played by Jim Carrey in Batman Forever. His look has been done in Lawn Mower Man and Watchman and Star Wars. He fell into a vat like the Joker in Burtons Batman. And ok, so we've never seen Electro done in a movie before but Spiderman 3 gave us another villain that had no business being the main villain in a Spiderman movie when they did the Sandman way back in Spiderman 3. How many creative ways can you say With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility?

In case anyone missed it, Cracked comes through once again:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-about-spider-man-that-dont-make-any-damn-sense/

[thunderbolt]

You know you're right? That's gotta be the single most arrogant post I've ever read on here. It's called an opinion for a reason, Huedell, and yours isn't the only one. Accept it.

PLEASE get over yourself.

He just can't do that.

[enyawd72]

What I do know is that those that are notably bothered with ASM2, are way off the beaten path of that "correct combo". But the raw truth of it is that while I know I'm right, I'm still in a pretty small minority. Not a large enough group for what a tight movie like ASM2 deserves. Oh well.

You know you're right? That's gotta be the single most arrogant post I've ever read on here. It's called an opinion for a reason, Huedell, and yours isn't the only one. Accept it.

PLEASE get over yourself.

[thunderbolt]

so, fans should not expect the movie to be at least sorta faithful to the source material? I personally lost all interest after seeing Rhino and the other supposed Marvel villain designs. Junking the source material and compressing/connecting every single character is not creative or fun, its lazy and disrespectful to the audience. To me it reads like we are all idiots that can't handle anything that just happens without some deep connection to everyone else in the movie. In this Oscorp is basically a villain factory for Spidey, and stole a page right out of Lex Luthor's evil handbook. Comic book and cartoon Luthor that is, not the real estate swindling idiot Hue is familiar with from the movies.

[huedell]

BRAVO!...Thumbs way up!

Thumbs down to the ground.

Apparently fans invested that much in the character should have a scarlet letter watermark stamped over their reviews. The issue becomes too muddled.

It's like they want to see all the creative life sucked out of a fun film, while simultaneously ignoring the things it DOES "get right".

Superhero films are so rarely decent watches... nice combos of fun and unique... that opinions are all over the board.

What I do know is that those that are notably bothered with ASM2, are way off the beaten path of that "correct combo". But the raw truth of it is that while I know I'm right, I'm still in a pretty small minority. Not a large enough group for what a tight movie like ASM2 deserves. Oh well.

[FETT1]

I think this is the movie that turned me off of Super Hero movies. With the exception of the Xmen movie coming out (which aside from x3 has been the best handled marvel movie franchise), I don't think I can honestly say I'm looking forward to any more Super Hero movies. This movie was all over the place. The Spiderman quips in the beginning combined with the Jim Carrey Riddler-esque performance of Max/Electro and the cartoonish feel of the movie itself, this thing had elements of Batman Forever all over it. Then there's the other elements of the movie that were on the opposite end of the spectrum. Green Goblins "origin" and death of Richard Parker 007 was totally dark, Aunt May not being good enough for Peter, unbelievably sappy, and the death of Gwen Stacey which was fraught with in your face symbolism (Gwens heart-string graduation speech in the beginning/end of the movie about immortality sandwiched in-between her dying in and breaking a clock literally spelling out for the audience that her time has run out...ugh) I don't think this Spiderman series knows what it wants to be. Well, it wants to be "amazing" judging by the amount of times they used that word in the film but it was anything but. You can't have a light hearted but sometime overly dark and incredibly cartoonish super hero movie because in the end, you're all over the map. What was up with that song during the first Electro/Spidey fight. Was that an actual song or was it supposed to be Electro's internal monolog? Either way it was distractingly bad.

Also all over the map were the character designs. If this is how they're going to present the new Spiderman franchise at least give the audience villains that look like the comic book. If they could get Loki into his ridiculous outfit , why couldn't Electro (Don't ya know) be yellow and green and did not anyone making this film realize he came across like Dr Manhattan meets The Emperor? Why the heck can't any of these films get the Goblin right and since when is Rhino a dinobot. Even the Stan Lee cameo in this movie was dumb.

I don't think it's about super hero movies being plausible or not. I think it's about getting it right and time after time these movies don't get it right. But I think the biggest problem I'm starting to have with these Marvel movies is that none of them seem to be going anywhere. It's starting to feel like each of these sequels to an origin movie is just a set up for the next sequel. None of these films have a satisfying ending that leaves me feeling like I've just watched a complete story and none of the next installments makes me feel like anything is coming to a resolve. The biggest offender of this is the first three Spidey movies where they just up and changed events from the first film to fit the plot of the third film, introduced ideas that lead nowhere or got abandoned entirely, changed the movie so much from the source material that it became almost unrecognizable and then just ended the series without any resolve and I can see Marvel doing that exact same thing with any one of their ongoing film franchises. What Marvel does with it's movies is like if the original Star Wars movies ended with Empire and started over again with Episode 1 and while that may work in actual comic books, eventually the paying masses are going to get wary of it and the bubble will burst.

BRAVO!...Thumbs way up!

[spacecaps]

I think this is the movie that turned me off of Super Hero movies. With the exception of the Xmen movie coming out (which aside from x3 has been the best handled marvel movie franchise), I don't think I can honestly say I'm looking forward to any more Super Hero movies. This movie was all over the place. The Spiderman quips in the beginning combined with the Jim Carrey Riddler-esque performance of Max/Electro and the cartoonish feel of the movie itself, this thing had elements of Batman Forever all over it. Then there's the other elements of the movie that were on the opposite end of the spectrum. Green Goblins "origin" and death of Richard Parker 007 was totally dark, Aunt May not being good enough for Peter, unbelievably sappy, and the death of Gwen Stacey which was fraught with in your face symbolism (Gwens heart-string graduation speech in the beginning/end of the movie about immortality sandwiched in-between her dying in and breaking a clock literally spelling out for the audience that her time has run out...ugh) I don't think this Spiderman series knows what it wants to be. Well, it wants to be "amazing" judging by the amount of times they used that word in the film but it was anything but. You can't have a light hearted but sometime overly dark and incredibly cartoonish super hero movie because in the end, you're all over the map. What was up with that song during the first Electro/Spidey fight. Was that an actual song or was it supposed to be Electro's internal monolog? Either way it was distractingly bad.

Also all over the map were the character designs. If this is how they're going to present the new Spiderman franchise at least give the audience villains that look like the comic book. If they could get Loki into his ridiculous outfit , why couldn't Electro (Don't ya know) be yellow and green and did not anyone making this film realize he came across like Dr Manhattan meets The Emperor? Why the heck can't any of these films get the Goblin right and since when is Rhino a dinobot. Even the Stan Lee cameo in this movie was dumb.

I don't think it's about super hero movies being plausible or not. I think it's about getting it right and time after time these movies don't get it right. But I think the biggest problem I'm starting to have with these Marvel movies is that none of them seem to be going anywhere. It's starting to feel like each of these sequels to an origin movie is just a set up for the next sequel. None of these films have a satisfying ending that leaves me feeling like I've just watched a complete story and none of the next installments makes me feel like anything is coming to a resolve. The biggest offender of this is the first three Spidey movies where they just up and changed events from the first film to fit the plot of the third film, introduced ideas that lead nowhere or got abandoned entirely, changed the movie so much from the source material that it became almost unrecognizable and then just ended the series without any resolve and I can see Marvel doing that exact same thing with any one of their ongoing film franchises. What Marvel does with it's movies is like if the original Star Wars movies ended with Empire and started over again with Episode 1 and while that may work in actual comic books, eventually the paying masses are going to get wary of it and the bubble will burst.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Quote Originally Posted by Earth 2 Chris View Post
Or, it could be that it was just a good movie, ya know. That might be it.

Chris
nope !!!...

I was referring to Hedrap's comments about fanboys gushing about Cap 2.

Chris

[FETT1]

I hated it. I wasted enough time sitting through so I won't waste any time going into details here.

well said !

[FETT1]

Or, it could be that it was just a good movie, ya know. That might be it.

Chris

nope !!!...

[phil]

I hated it. I wasted enough time sitting through so I won't waste any time going into details here.

[Earth 2 Chris]

You know, you're right about that. Animated had a demo starting with five year-olds so the stories had to be simplistic enough for them to get, and Marvel movies are made with that mentality. That's why fanboys creamed their jeans over Winter Soldier; it was pretentious so it felt adult.

Or, it could be that it was just a good movie, ya know. That might be it.

Chris

[Hector]

ASM 2 was hot and cold for me.

First..

Many were talking dismissing Electro for being Black, or whatever, I never even noticed what race Electro was...he just turned out to be the best villain in the movie, lol.

Jamie Foxx gave him some heart...he was actually likeable even in mad Electro mode...a geek turned vengeful villain...I actually dug his role.

Dane DeHaan's Harry Osborn was pretty dead on...but boy...his Green Goblin was pretty lame...he made Willem Dafoe's Gobby look downright magical. The only one lamer was James Franco's snowboard version.

Paul Giamatti's role was not even needed in the film...and his Rhino was just truly embarrassing...I noticed people in the audience giggling and laughing...one dude said, "oh, look, a poor man's Transformer", no lie, lol.

How ironic that they missed the mark on the villains...but they got Spidey, oh so right...

Andrew Garfield owns the role of both Spidey/Parker though...it embodies the role much more effectively than Tobey Maguire ever did...love the jokes and sarcasm of Spidey...something Maguire never achieved (and his Parker was always humorless as well). Plus Garfield doesn't have that annoying screechy Maguire voice/screams...and Garfield's longer and leaner body makes him more effective as Spidey.

The problem the third installment is going to suffer is the absence of Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy...she was the glue that held everything together...she was the heart and soul of the franchise...and she was incredible adorable to say the least...it was the chemistry between Garfield and Stone that made the movie work for me...now that she's gone...Amazing 3 doesn't look so good anymore to me. We shall see.

Spidey's CGI has vastly improved...his swinging through New York is truly amazing to watch...so are the fight sequences...and the dude is just funny.

But they did cram too much stuff in one movie...so it felt rushed in many areas.

...and like many posters said before...the whole thing about Parker's parents, and OSCORP being involved in everything, it's like SHIELD and HYDRA all wrapped into one...lame.

I have always like Spider-Man a lot more than Captain America...but the Winter Soldier is the superior film.

I just can't can't get over of how lame the Green Goblin was...and how pathetically weak and stupid Rhino was...good grief man, lol.

I rate ASM 2 a 7 outta 10 (it gets a seven because Garfield is perfect as both Spidey/Parker, despite the film's other problems).

Nuff said!

[hedrap]

I can't agree with this assessment because there's a million ways to disseminate suspects from a pure Oscorp takedown. Payoffs, blackmail, rogue government involvement... heck, even your own Doc Ock scenario could be tweaked as a diversion to the "main problem" you're centering on.

I bought into LexCorp being what it was in STAS/JL/JLU (essentially what you're saying *can't* be easily rationalized as far as this superhero universe reality), and there's no reason IMHO why others shouldn't have either. Same with ASM's Oscorp.

You know, you're right about that. Animated had a demo starting with five year-olds so the stories had to be simplistic enough for them to get, and Marvel movies are made with that mentality. That's why fanboys creamed their jeans over Winter Soldier; it was pretentious so it felt adult.