April 25, 2014

Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

So last night I got to attend the screening of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." I was worried since I had read an earlier review comparing the film as the "Batman & Robin" of "The Amazing Spider-Man" series. Trthfully though, it felt more like "Batman Forever." An overall good film, with some bad moments, but overall good ones. Trying to avoid as much spoilers as possible, but some minor ones will be present, if you haven't watched any of the trailers in theaters or TV.

The beginning of the film wasn't great. Things I didn't like included Aleksei Sytsevich's (Paul Giamatti) incoherent dialogue, not to mention the character's lack-of-intellect. Granted Aleksei (aka the Rhino) isn't a scientist in the comics, but the characterization in the movie's beginning was just badly comedic.

Max Dillon (Jaime Foxx) on the other hand played the geeky scientist, who's either looked down upon or outright ignored by his peers. He's also a bit of the bumbling professor, similar to Jim Carrey's Edward Nygma (Riddler). My gripe in the film was that they made him just too pathetic, before his rebirth as Electro. It just came to the point that they stuffed every bumbling, geeky cliche they could into his character.

Another downside for me was Peter Parker's (Andrew Garfield) bad excuses to pretty much everyone in the film, not to mention the on-and-off interest he continues to have with his power's origin, as well as his father's research.

However the biggest gripe is Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan)… the character just overall lacked bad judgement and his sudden genetic ailments were just rushed for no reason other than to push the story along, when it didn't make sense. The reason it didn't make sense to me, was due to us seeing Norman Osborn surviving the same ailment for decades, while Harry suffers the effects in a matter of hours.

Once you survive the beginning of the film though, it does get better.

Electro's Times Square attack is beautifully done, as is the Spider-Man fights with Electro and "Green Goblin" (never actually called that in the film, BTW).

Wasn't a fan of Electro in the trailers, but loved him in the film. The effects for Electro and his powers were fantastic, and there's even a chase scene that looks fantastic as Spider-Man's chasing a streak of electricity.

The clock tower fight between "Green Goblin" and Spider-Man is fantastic with a lot of close-quarters fighting on gears and atop the goblin glider.

The series does continue to show Peter Parker as a scientist, as there's a wonderful scene of him trying to figure out how to protect his web shooters from Electro's powers in the garage.

Amazingly enough, there were many scenes in the various trailers that were cut from the final film, not to mention there being no scenes in the credits, although the trailer for "X-Men: Days of Future Past" has been tacked onto the end, after credits, in some countries.

Overall loved the film! Just wished some of the dialogue was better.