Reviews

Film review - Amazing Spiderman 2

Posted on: 2014-04-24

Some scenes could have in fact been cut and paste from previous Spidey adventures. That said, there are plenty of thrills and spills amidst the expositional sojourns, and it's occasionally a perky, funky, vibrant take on the character's mythology.

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Tobey Maguire had barely hung up his Spidey suit for Sam Raimi's take on the web-slinging franchise before director Marc Webb cast Andrew Garfield and kick-started his own reboot.

Exactly why Spiderman needed another interpretation is open to speculation – some believe it's to make up for the over-stuffed, messy Spiderman 3, others that the studio wanted to retain the rights before they reverted back to Marvel.

Whatever the reason, our favourite acrobatic arachnid – now prefixed with the Amazing  attribute -  was given a slightly different spin on an old and familiar comic book origins story. It wasn't as good as Raimi's, but it wasn't a total disaster either.

The Amazing Spiderman 2 gives us more of the same. More, in fact, of everything. More back-story about Peter Parker's parents, more villains, more romance, more special effects, more spectacular city-destroying action. There's a prevailing and niggling sense of de ja vu with it all, exacerbated by the fact that practically every week ushers in the cinematic unleashing of a new Marvel movie.  A certain case of the law of diminishing returns.

It doesn't help that director Webb seems so often split as to which story he really wants to tell. On one hand it's a romance, sprinkled with the angst and torment of teen love and Parker's inevitable realisation that his web-slinging alter-ego will inevitably pose a threat to those he loves the most.

The emotional epicentre of the Spiderman mythology has always been the love story, whether it's Mary-Jane or Gwen Stacey. Admittedly, the dynamic between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone works well, blending the kooky, lanky, charming awkwardness of Parker with the head-strong academic beauty of Stacey. They over-play it a little here, but there's an undeniable charm and chemistry with their interplay.   There are also a few unexpectedly moving scenes between Peter and Aunt May (Sally Field) that deliver a surprisingly emotional wallop.

But if Marvel on celluloid is defined by anything it's the ability to deliver action-packed set-pieces and villains that kick monumental ass – and Spidey 2 delivers in bucket loads. 

Jamie Foxx's Max Dillon is set up as Oscorp's gap-toothed, bespectacled nerdy lackey who transforms into Electro after plunging into a gigantic vat of mutant electric eels. Electro himself growls, snarls and hurls bolts of electric charges from his fingertips in his destructive skirmishes with our webbed wonder, yet visually he seems a twisted, sparkling, translucent love child of Dr Manhattan from Watchmen and Mr Freeze. 

Dane DeHaan plays Harry Osborn as a convincing pal to Parker, rekindling an old friendship in earlier scenes of affecting psychological drama that ultimately degenerate into inane grinning and cackling when he finally – and all to briefly – falls victim to an hereditary mutation that make him the Green Goblin. Paul Giamatti even makes an appearance in the very first and last five minutes as a deranged Russian mobster and his eventual alter-ego Rhino. As with Raimi's Spiderman 3, it comes occasionally dangerously close to packing in too many bad guys. More bang for your buck certainly, but at the expense of fleshing any of them sufficiently out.

And therein lays another problem: the length. You always like to feel you're getting value for money  - and you certainly do during the many frenzied, CGI-led action sequences (and with a reported budget of $200m the money's definitely up on the screen)  - but with a running time of 142 minutes it would have benefitted from a judicious editorial trimming. Scenes are padded out and extra characters are briefly introduced and just as quickly excised, and the whole thing could have been snipped to fashion a punchier, tighter film.

The 3D is nevertheless absolutely spectacular, pushing the boundaries and gob-smacking effectiveness of the format to new and thrilling limits, sweeping us through the city's skyscrapers and inducing a giddying, exhilarating rush as Spidey web-slings his ways from one heroic action set-piece to another. It's also employed in more subtle and effective ways too, exploiting the medium's potential for unexpected visual depth for scenes inside the sanctum of Oscorp itself and a disused subway station.

The Amazing Spiderman 2 then, is something of a mixed bag, its own disparate web of intrigue. It certainly delivers on the thrills and spills and a more hit than miss interplay with its romantic leads, but it does beg the question of whether it was all absolutely necessary.

As with the recent glut of Marvel flicks there's also the inevitable realisation it's something of a teaser for a whole slew of other adaptions and spin-offs currently in the pipeline, chief amongst them The Sinister Six. 

So there's a lot here that's really done before and some scenes could have in fact been cut and paste from previous Spidey adventures. That said, there are plenty of thrills and spills amidst the expositional sojourns, and it's occasionally a perky, funky, vibrant take on the character's mythology.  

3/5

Reviewed by Jamie Caddick for 365Bristol

 

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