The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The day the superhero world stood still

We pick up where we last left off with this, Gwen and Peter are together and Spider-man is saving New York. The ghost of Captain Stacy looms over the relationship straining it, and Spider-Man's crime fighting is not helping matters. During this time Spider-Man has earned himself a die hard fan in the process from his crime fighting, and this fan meets with an unfortunate accident turning him into Electro. There is a lot going on in this movie and I think I covered the main bases.... oh yeah, Peter starts investigating his parent's disappearance. Watch the trailers, everything is revealed there; for now I really want to talk shit about this movie.

Okay here is the type of movie that tests the integrity of a critic. On the one had this movie is even worse then the first (and yes that is possible); on the other, I know I am going to get A LOT of shit for not liking this movie. Oh well, can't please everyone.

As usual we start off with the story line. No. No, we are not calling this a story line, we are calling this fan fiction. Poorly written fan fiction. Can't get on board with what Peter's dad said in the video. Can't get on board with the mere coincidences that led to many origins (and deaths). There is just too much. Too many random circumstances that just happened to lead to everything working out exactly the way these writers wanted it to. It all just felt so forced. They tried to hide behind subtlety, but ended up making it seem like they wanted you to know they were trying too hard. Trying too hard isn't always a bad thing, but being so blatant about your lack of expertise in writing, then trying to mask that with over compensation will never work. There is so much that I want to tell you about this, but seriously don't know how to get past the whole "spoiler" bit. Let's just say Gwen doesn't work in this method, her character ended up being overshadowed and unimportant at times. The movie acted like it had ADD, it couldn't hold onto one scene for too long. Basically it reminded of a kid that actually saw a real Spider-Man go through these events and say it all in that excited kid manner. "Oh man Spiderman did this, and this, and that; then WHOOOSH and BOOM! And Gwen was all like AHH!! Green Goblin and Electro were like ERGGG!!! IT WAS SO AWESOME!" I don't know if I can blame the writers for all of that though, I feel like so many of the problems this movie ended up with were mainly due to the directing.

A big problem the director seemed to go through was telling the actors to just wing it, instead of actually directing them. It is like Marc Webb got bored with anything that wasn't "500 days of summer;" instead of directing he just decided to sit in his trailer and count the money he got for directing instead of actually doing it. Why can I say this? I know Jamie Foxx, Emma Stone, and Paul Giamatti are great actors. Andrew Garfield and Dane DeHann showed great potential. All performances here were pure garbage, just horribly awful for almost everyone involved. The only serviceable performance came from Sally Field, and she was one of the least prominent characters.  This is one of the greatest sins this movie commits, they have all of this talent and just fail to utilize it. I love all of these actors, this movie will not change that; but having them do so poorly falls strictly on the director.

Let's talk about the fight sequences now (sense I know this is what drives most people to see these movies). Can we say bland? Just utterly bland, like I couldn't get into them at all. With superhero movies having such a focus on action, and movies like "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "The Avengers," and "The Dark Knight" (even "Man of Steel") setting the bar to a new level, this movie should feel embarrassed. I couldn't get engrossed in the fight sequences. I couldn't put myself in the character's shoes. In "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" I felt like I was Cap, I was on the edge of my seat. With this I was just watching, and waiting (kind of bored). The fights were too long or too short, and there just weren't that many of them.

The only saving grace I can even hope to put towards this movie came from the visuals; and in this day and age that is like saying "the only good thing I can say about this restaurant's hamburger is that: it is meaty." A movie like this is expected to have good visuals, and the only time the visuals should be noted is if they are bad. Electro looks like a cool version of Dr. Manhattan, and the electricity was pretty interesting to watch.

 The pacing in this really took me out of the experience too. Why does Spider-Man take so much of his time to talk to this random guy (and he doesn't seem rushed, even though during the fight he is rushed), I get that Jamie Foxx is important to the story line, you do not need to shove that down my throat. You know what would have helped this character? If Spider-Man just saved him and gave him one line of dialogue then went to go stop the speeding truck; not stand there and have a conversation with the guy.If the meeting was more brief his over zealous fandom would have felt more genuinely creepy.

All this movie did for me is convince me that Marvel needs to get the rights to Spider-Man back. They seem to actually know what to do with superheros (these days) and Sony is a sinking ship (speaking in terms of movies). This Spider-Man is more annoying then any incarnation before (from comics, T.V., or movies), and that is saying a lot. I know there are going to be people out there that blindly like this movie. Somehow, someway, they think this movie is good, when in reality it is shit. I am not trying to take that experience away from you. If you can get some sort of enjoyment out of this train wreck, by all means enjoy. We are obviously just on two different wavelengths.

Final Verdict: Don't do it I wanted to like this movie. I wanted Sony to have a shot at making a good choice. I was severely disappointed. You could not pay me to watch this movie again. This competes with "Hulk" and "Batman and Robin" for worst superhero movie. It is even worse then "Spider-Man 3" (at least that movie knew what it was).