The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Release Date: July 3, 2012 Studio: Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment Screenplay by: James Vanderbilt Directed by: Marc Webb Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, Martin Sheen, Sally Field
Description: One of the world's most popular characters is back on the big screen as a new chapter in the Spider-Man legacy is revealed in The Amazing Spider-Man. Focusing on an untold story that tells a different side of the Peter Parker story, the new film stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field. The film is directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt, based on the Marvel Comic Book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Laura Ziskin, Avi Arad, and Matt Tolmach are producing the film in association with Marvel Entertainment for Columbia Pictures, which will open in theaters everywhere in 3D on July 3, 2012.
The Amazing Spider-Man is the story of Peter Parker (Garfield), an outcast high schooler who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben (Sheen) and Aunt May (Field). Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy (Stone), and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents' disappearance – leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors (Ifans), his father's former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors' alter-ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review by Stu
The second and thankfully final chapter of The Amazing Spider-Man franchise will undoubtedly go down as one of the biggest screw ups in cinematic history. It is sadly no more than the film, franchise and studio deserve, but for fans of the character, it was sad to see such a dramatic, ugly and painful fall. It's legacy should serve as a warning to all studios. Do not let the trees burn down while you search for the forest, and learn to let go of a producer who doesn't have a clear vision of the franchise or the character (Fox also made this mistake with Simon Kinberg and its X-Men franchise, sadly).
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 simply tries to do a great many things but fails to pull much of anything off convincingly. Perplexing creative choices were made, the script feels like a few different stories and arcs where meshed together jarringly and the actors are all over the place with their performances, none more so than the lead Andrew Garfield himself. He can't seem to help himself from hamming it up in one moment and moping about seconds later. He is not aided by the best of supporting casts - including an utterly wasted Jaime Foxx as Electro, the least intimidating supervillain in recent memory in Dane DeHaan as The Green Goblin (...I think?) and Paul Giammo as The Rhino, who appears to have come straight from the set of the 1960s Batman television series (but lacking a sense of humour). It doesn't help that Garfield's Peter Parker and Spider-Man are written as almost two entirely separate characters, and his Peter Parker is not remotely likeable. He comes across a mopey chore whenever he's Peter and wisecracking buffon whenever he's Spidey, regardless of the gravitas of the situation (the car chase sequence when Alexis is literally tearing through midtown with highly dangerous plutonium in this trunk, and Parker is running late for his graduation, being one of the many examples.)
To shed some light on the history of the film, it's the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, which was a revamp that came far too soon after the far superior and successful original Sam Raimi Spider-Man franchise. I thought very little of the revamp as it seemed to come across as a retread rather than a reboot, and with a lead in Andrew Garfield who didn't pull off either Peter Parker or Spider-Man. I remember having a worrying feeling of dread this film would follow suit... I called that one.
The film falters early on and never really recovers. There is a whole subplot about Parker's parents that has no place in Spider-Man's origin, and only adds an unneeded level of convoluted mess to an otherwise simple story (it also continues the film's annoying marketing trend of not showing us a story they advertised in trailers as being part of the movie). While this one can be credited for not being a scene for scene retelling of stories done better elsewhere, like the preceeding big-screen iteration of Spidey, it's still disappointing to see a different film released than the one they marketed, especially as the marketed film sounds far more interesting than what was produced.
The best scene in the entire film is the electrifying aforementioned opening Spider-Man sequence in which Spider-Man stops Alexis' Sytevich from stealing some plutonium (the reason is never really given). It shows off the best of what was the good at and gives the film a much needed jolt following a needless flashback to Peter's parents.
The rest of the story is sadly a mess. Peter is still undecided as to where his relationship with Gwen Stacy is going, and is struggling to follow the promise he made to a dying Capt. Stacy's to keep his distance from Gwen (which he apparently ignored during the break between the two films?). This just ends up giving the movie an unconvincing reason to dramatically break up. They break up and are back together again in the following scene, only to break up yet again and get back together. Confused? Bored? You should be.
The villains are not only visually lousy but sadly written even worse.
I'll get to Rhino later so we'll start with Electro, who was marketed as the chief villain of the story. He could pretty much be removed entirely from the plot with very little consequence beyond losing some legitimately good action scenes. His motivation for adoring Spider-Man is incredibly weak as is his 'heel turn' later on. Foxx has little to do with the role and can't be blamed for such a weekly written antagonist... Electro is sort of just there throughout the film and only really pops up whenever a fight scene is required (or the film wants to torture its audience by showing a horrifically campy/cringey Dr. Kafka scene).
Which brings us to Harry Osborn. It was far too early to use Harry again, especially with how disappointing his story was concluded in Spider-Man 3, and there's no real build or reason to believe he and Pete are best friends, given how he wasn't at all mentioned in the first movie and they have about two scenes together before Harry turns evil and decides he hates Spider-Man. Combine this with a massive, massive leap of logic in how Spider-Man obtained his powers, and the young Osborn does not fare well here. Add in many of the 'poor little rich boy' cliches and Dehann not pulling off any of Osborne's anger convincingly, and it just doesn't make for an entertaining character. Plus, chalk up another poorly designed villain for this Amazing franchise. Between the terrible Super Mario Bros. Koopa-esque take on The Lizard from the first film and all three villains looking pretty bland and uninspired here, someone at Sony's Visual Development department needs to take a closer look at the source material.
To give credit where credit is due, the choreography of the fight scenes and the web-slinging have really improved from the previous film, and are the clear highlight. While the first film failed in its attempts to add some more grounded 'realism' to its swinging sequences, this film wisely ignores all that and cuts loose. The CG is top notch and the new Spider-Man costume is a major, major improvement over the eyesore from the first The Amazing Spider-Man, (but still not as sweet looking at the Tobey Macguire attire - there's a reason fans clamored for that suit option in Spider-Man PS4 game), but the visual effects team are the true champions of the movie. The fight scenes are so well done that you get pulled in, even if you don't care for characters involved.
The film shifts tone after Spidey and Gwen kill Electro (no really, they pretty much straight up murder him), and Osborn shows up and, well, shoe-horns in the death of Ms. Stacy. Again, the fight scene is tremendously done but I didn't feel the film earn the right to kill her off. It seemed to come out left field, as Electro has been cast as the main villain and then suddenly Harry shows up as a teenaged-Goblin, in an attempt to save himself from a disease that killed his Dad as an old man ... it's just to awkwardly sandwiched in there. They rushed the entire Goblin story here and sacrificed Gwen to give it an unearned sense of importance.
The ending itself is the true highlight of the film. While the idea of Spider-Man giving people hope didn't really resonate during the movie, planting the seed of having the young Spidey-fan stand up to Rhino as the catalyst for Peter putting on the suit again was a nice touch (that fist bump could've been really cheesy, but damn it it was legit one of the best parts of the film.) Hanz Zimmer and the Magnificent Six's overlooked "Spider-Man" theme is used to perfection here to gave an oddly triumphant ending to a film where Spidey's girlfriend just died, but alas... given how poor the rest of the movie was, I'm glad there was something in the films two-hour plus runtime to finally cheer about.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 just ... didn't work. Too many cooks in the kitchen, and sarcificing story to hit unearned moments and plant franchise seeds for a franchise that didn't start off strong to begin with was the wrong call. Fans loudly dismissed this version of Spider-Man, and it took a huge hit at the box office. For a quick summation: ill-thought out plans for a Spider-Man cinematic universe where shelved (for a few years anyway, a Morbius film no one asked for and a sequel to the lousy Venom movie are possibly coming to a cinema near you, Covid virus pending!) and Spider-Man was rebooted to greater success and allowed to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, far away from Avi Arad, thankfully. This movie's failure did end up working in favor of the character's movie franchise, much like how Batman and Robin got us Batman Begins.
Let this movie serve as a reminder that audiences won't settle for underwhelming super-hero movies that don't feel like they actually care for the characters (and that Sony should keep their contract with Marvel as long as possible). Besides, we don't need to see Arad in charge of another Spider-Man movie again consider how he already tanked two. If you're interested in seeing what led to the near-destruction of the Spider-Man film franchise, then give this one a go ... but you might not like what you find.
