Jay Snook trains his web shooter and the latest entry in the Spidey franchise.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is not a terrible film, but it does have its flaws.
When I heard this film was coming out, I was very excited. I saw the trailers, and loved how they put a new spin of Electro. He seemed powerful, sinister and determined to bring chaos to this city and everyone who lived in it. The only person who could save everyone is Spider-Man, but as is to be seen this will not be a simple task: it will be the fight of his life.
This film begins a few years after the last one. Peter Parker is doing some freelance photo work for The Daily Bugle and is still dating Gwen Stacy. Peter shows up late to her graduation and misses her entire speech, and we find that Peter is haunted by images of her father George Stacy who died in the last film who made Peter promise he would leave Gwen out of his life.
This is something that Peter is having a hard time dealing with, but he decides it is best if he break up with Gwen to keep her safe. Meanwhile, Harry Osborne comes back to town to visit his ailing father Norman, who is dying of a hereditary illness that he says will one day kill Harry, too. The next day, Norman dies and Harry becomes the new CEO of Oscorp. Harry is given by his dad a small device that he claims contains all of his life’s work, and there may be a cure for him somewhere on it.
Max Dillon, who thinks he is nobody, is saved by Spider-Man, and after this he idolizes him. He thinks Spider-Man is his only friend. One the day of Max’s B-day, he goes to work at Oscorp where he is doing research on creating a new power source. A cord becomes loose, and he goes to fix it. He gets shocked and falls into a tank full of electric eels. He is believed to have died in this accident, but he lives and becomes the villain Electro. When he sees Spider-Man in Times Square, he gets mad when Spider-Man doesn’t remember who he is, and vows to make him and everyone in the city pay. How will Spider-Man stop this new villain and keep Gwen safe?
Andrew Garfield is back as Peter Parker/ Spider-Man, Emma Stone again plays Gwen Stacy, Jamie Foxx plays Max Dillon/ Electro, Dane Deehan plays Harry Osborne, Sally Field is Aunt May, Campbell Scott play Richard Parker, Chris Cooper plays Norman Osborne, Embeth Davidtz plays Mary Parker, and Denis Leary is back as George Stacy.
This film has good and bad things going for it. It does have a good story line that I thought flowed pretty well. Jamie Foxx does an amazing job as Electro, and is truly a man you don’t want to mess with. Andrew Garfield is again great as Spider-Man, and we get to see sides of him in this film that has not been seen before. We see the struggles he has with his parents disappearing, and how tough it was to lose Uncle Ben and Gwen’s dad. The special effects in this movie are amazing, and the soundtrack makes many scenes powerful and great to watch.
So what are the problems with this film? It does spend a lot of time talking about Peter’s dad, and I thought it was nice, but it could have been trimmed down a bit. I also didn’t like how there were more villains in this film toward the end, you could tell their presence was rushed, and the ending was also odd to me. Without giving anything away it ends on a cliffhanger, which was strange and unnecessary. But what bothered me the most was the fact that you could tell the writers were planning films ahead, which made this one not as great as it could have been. I get that these films are marketable, but I think it would have been best to stick to what was going on in the film, and not making it obvious that you are planning ahead with the actions that happen now. If they had avoided this, it would have been an amazing film.
If you were a fan of the last one, I am sure you will enjoy this one too. It is a film that would be good to go see with family, and has many great lessons that everyone should put into their lives.
This film got the #1 spot for the weekend, and so far has made $92 million in the US alone.