Total
Spoiler Review… so, you know, don't read this mess.
It was a bad day my friends, and one of my earliest
memories. My much older brother brought the comics, I
was learning how to read, maybe five or six at the time and he
had brought home a stack of .25 cent books… I know, right…
including Spiderman #121. The cover made it clear as day
that somebody close to Peter Parker was gonna die, and even at
the young age of five I figured it would be Robbie, because…
well… he's Black. This is 1973 we're talking
about. Freaking Richard Nixon was still president and
the Civil Rights Act is like five years old. But no,
they killed Gwen Stacy. I mean… that was probably too
much for a five year old to deal with, because that's like
Peter's girl. I remember turning the pages back and
forth hoping somehow, someway, something would change. I
still don't know if I've ever fully recovered from that, my
first recollection of a pop culture event causing me mental
duress. The next one would come a few years later when
James Evans Sr. died, but that's another story. This
brings us to the next Amazing Spiderman movie, in 'The Amazing
Spiderman 2'. We knew when this reboot chose Gwen Stacy
as Peter Parker's love interest, eventually she had to
die. Just didn't know in which movie it would
happen. If I were Emma Stone's agent, I would have
petitioned to put it off until the fifth or sixth film.
The film starts off with Peter's dad Richard (Campbell Scott)
trying do something or another with his research until
eventually dying in a fiery crash. I'm of the thought
that the Richard Parker scenes don't add much to either this
film or the last film, especially this one, outside of padding
an overly long movie, and giving Peter (Andrew Garfield) more
things to angst over, and Peter Parker doesn't really need
additional things to angst over. There's the pressure of
being Spiderman and constantly saving helpless New Yorkers who
for the life of themselves cannot get out of the way
of flying
motor vehicles, there's the angst of dealing with Aunt May
(Sally Field) and her numerous issues, there's the angst of
trying to graduate from high school which is heightened by
Peter being close to thirty, and of course there's the problem
of Gwen (Emma Stone). He loves her, her dad said stay
away, he can't stay away, she can't stay away, they break up,
they get back together… repeat… all of this just makes the
whole daddy issue thing piling on.
Who is Spidey's nemesis this time? This time we have
Electro (Jamie Foxx). We're not going to get into how
the character of Max Dillon became Electro or why he, for no
real reason, hates Spiderman, especially considering this
whole story arc gave us real bad flashbacks to 'Superman III',
but Electro is one of our main villains. The other, I
guess, is Harry Osborn and the Green Goblin. Again,
however, the path taken from semi-normal person to razor
toothed, Spiderman hating super villain is a clunky one.
And always in the middle is Gwen Stacy… and her dead dad… it's
complicated… with Gwen doing her very best to try to die the
good death. Seriously, the girl has to be part Viking /
part Klingon with how hard she was trying to die.
Looking back, I wasn't all that crazy about 'The Amazing
Spiderman', feeling it was a movie designed for a couple of
generations before me… despite me and Andrew Garfield being
about the same age… but ultimately I still thought it was
pretty good. This one… I'm not so sure about. Dare
I say that I even liked Sam Raimi's much maligned 'Spiderman
3' more than this one? Peter doesn't dance to show tunes
in this one, which still might keep this movie above that one,
but it's kind of close. From where I was sitting, a lot
of the same issues that plague that movie come back to plague
this one in that it's far too busy, there are way too many
super villains to deal with, it's overly long and there is a
preponderance of melodrama to deal with. But here's the
thing about the Peter / Gwen melodrama in that it's arguably
the best thing about this movie. This is helped
immensely by Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy being so much more
appealing and approachable than Kirsten Dunst's hateful
version of Mary Jane. Even though Peter and Gwen's
constant breaking up was starting to grate on a nerve, I have
to admit the characters of Peter and Gwen were both dynamic
and they drove this film forward.
It's all the other stuff that took me away from the moment,
and if ever there was a movie with a lot of 'stuff' in it,
it's this movie. Harry Osborn has a story that needs to
be told, but it's half-told because there just isn't time to
properly tell his story and deal with Peter and Gwen and
Electro and elongated action sequences and Aunt May and the
daddy issues. For instance, in the first Spiderman movie
in 2002, Harry was always there with Peter, more or less, so
his story was kind of developing along with Peter's so there
was no real need to take time out to tell his story, so when
Harry eventually becomes his version of the Green Goblin, it
flowed better. Here, Harry and Peter spent about five
minutes together, in which we are told they were best friends,
though Garfield and Dane DeHaan really couldn't establish this
dynamic in the little time they were given together.
This just leads to another detached, elongated action sequence
with no real meaning. Except the final result which was
pulled right out of Spiderman #121.
I guess the word I'd have to use to sum up my feelings about
'The Amazing Spiderman 2' is 'unsatisfying'. Fewer
villains, less extemporaneous filler, and a touch more focus
would've made for a more coherent film. If one were to
ask me.
