The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review
It’s week number 5 in my Spider-Man review series, so that means today we are talking about The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This is a movie that has a LOT of behind the scene issues, and not a good reputation with both critics and audiences. And I saw this movie one time in the theater, and I don’t think I’ve rewatched this movie since the theater. So, I was due for a rewatch of this movie. How is it? Let’s get started!
The Good:
The best thing about this movie is Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. They were one of the best parts about the first movie, in particular their chemistry in this franchise is just great. And here, I might even say that it is better than it was in the first movie. Maybe that’s because their relationship was already established going into this movie. But they get several cute dating moments all through-out the movie.
I also do think there's some pretty cool action inside of this movie. Both of these movies have great action inside of it, and here they do some bigger action inside of it. I really enjoy the truck chase with Rhino towards the beginning of the movie, it’s shot very well. But all through-out the movie, there are a number of great action sequences that are shot very well. And add some nice entertainment value to the movie.
Also adding to the entertainment value is there is a lot of humor in this movie that made me laugh. In the first 30 minutes of the movies you get two great scenes between Peter and Aunt May. One involves a joke about a chimney and the other one where Aunt May doesn’t want Peter to do the laundry. Both of those scenes made me laugh out loud, and there are some other funny moments here and there.
Finally, this next part is going to be talking about SPOILERS for the movie. So don’t read this part of the blog post if you haven’t seen the movie. And the final positive of the movie is that I think that the death of Gwen Stacey in this movie is handled very well. A big part of that is how great of an actor Andrew Garfield is, and his reaction in that scene is done so well. And it’s one of the most heartbreaking scenes in any of these movies.
The Bad:
And while this movie does have some good things in it, this is a movie that is pretty flawed. And the biggest issue with this movie is that there is way too much going on in this movie. This movie has so many ideas inside of it, that it is so unfocused. You have Peter and Gwen breaking up, graduating high school, Harry Osborn gets introduced, Norman Osborn dies, Max Dillion is jealous of Spider-Man, Max becomes Electro, Electro and Harry team-up to defeat Spider-Man. And none of this feels developed, like Electro should be a great villain but since the movie needs to focus on other things, he gets swept under the rug. And it’s not just him, it’s everything in this movie. Early on in the movie, they set up this idea of New York City being divided into Spider-Man. That’s an interesting idea to explore in this movie, but it goes nowhere in this movie.
Another weakness of the movie are the villains, and I don’t think any of these villains worked. Which is frustrating because two of them are played by two world class actors in Jamie Foxx and Paul Giammati. But the type of performances they gave in this movie are weird. Like in the first act of the movie when Jamie Foxx is being the weird scientist that is a nobody, it’s a weird performance for somebody like Jamie to give. And the writing for him isn’t very good, I don’t think the motivation here is very good. It’s a lazy villain trope that has been done before in Batman Forever, The Incredibles, and Iron Man 3. Paul Giammatti as The Rhino is basically just a screaming henchman, who bookends the movie. They were setting up a Sinister Six movie and The Amazing Spider-Man 3 with this one, so they got an actor like Paul to be in those movies. But since he was only in one movie, it just doesn’t work. And we don’t understand him as a character. The final one here is Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn who later turns into Green Goblin, and this is another total fumble in this movie. I thought Dane did a good job of Harry Osborn in the first 20 minutes of his character being introduced, I thought he had a nice chemistry with Garfield. But as you move into the second half of the movie. And he starts turning into a literal Goblin, it just doesn’t work for me.
This next issue isn’t necessarily an issue with the movie but it does hold it back. And that is this movie sets up some interesting things that never pay off. One of the final scenes of the movie is very heavily setting up the next movie and a Sinister Six movie. But since we didn’t get the next film in this franchise, everything set up here involving the villains feels disappointing. I really want to see Spider-Man battle it out with The Sinister Six. (Hopefully we get the three Spider-Men fighting The Sinister Six in No Way Home). Like I said, this isn’t necessarily an issue with this movie. But it is something that holds it back, and if we got the next chapter then this wouldn’t have been an issue.
Finally, the score for the movie just isn’t very good. It’s easily the weakest score of all of the live action Spider-Man movies. Which is really frustrating because Hans Zimmer worked on the music for the movie. He’s one of the greatest film composers out there, but this doesn’t feel like his work. And I think it is easily his weakest score to date. Now I went onto IMDB to see who else worked on it, and there are like 5-6 different people that composed this movie. And so it’s hard to know how much of it is Zimmer and what is not. But whoever was the main factor in it, this score doesn’t work.
Final Thoughts: While this movie does have a number of things about it that are really good. In particular, the chemistry between Garfield and Stone is great. And there are some nice moments of humor as well as some cool action. But what holds this movie back is the story, storytelling, and the villains. So this should have been a top tier Spider-Man movie, but it isn’t. This might be the worst live action Spider-Man movie to date.
The Score: 6.4/10 (C)
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