Good news everyone! In the immortal words of Alice Cooper, school’s out for summer! That means that I have more time to play games and watch movies and give you, yes you, my lovely readers, my opinion on things. So this review is late, I know and I’m sorry. School kept me busy, then I had Fanime (a local anime convention) and then I got sick. So now I’m back and ready to start writing again. I have movies and games that are waiting for me to write about! So sit back and enjoy this review.
I love comic books and while I may prefer Image or Boom! as far as comic company’s go, I still love Marvel. I also like Marvel movies, for the most part, and this was a very good one. I hesitate to say great because I did have a few problems with it. So let’s make a compliment sandwich with this. I’ll say something good, give you the bad, and finish with good.
I really really enjoyed this movie. Everyone played their part real well and I was able to get immersed in the film. I was concerned about Dane Dehaan as I couldn’t really see him as Harry Osbourne, but he did a fantastic job. I argue that Andrew Garfield is a better Peter Parker than Tobey Maguire was. Tobey Maguire is a great actor (Brothers and Gatsby showed us that) but Garfield pulls of Peter Parker’s attitude better than Maguire did. Emma Stone is great if everything she does (Remember Easy A?). And Jamie Foxx…I’ll get to him later.
There was a lot of very funny moments in the movie and not all of them were spoiled by the trailers, but even those that were spoiled still got a good laugh out of me. The love story between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy was very touching and felt like it could have been written by Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally).
My first gripe is actually mixed in with something I loved about the movie. There were parts where the CG was great and I was blown away. But then there were some parts where the CG was terrible. It made me think I was watching a cut scene from an PSOne game (Picture the cut scenes from Final Fantasy VIII). So what I really wanted was some consistency. It really pulled me out of the movie to see Electro looking like some low budget indie film’s attempt at CG.
My second gripe is about the stinger. No! Don’t go! I won’t spoil it for you, but I will say that it wasn’t worth it. Once the credits start rolling, just go. There’s only one stinger after the movie and it sucks. I’ll say what it is in the spoiler section.
The third gripe I had was that the plot felt rushed. It was one of the same problems Spider-Man 3 had. But don’t worry. This movie wasn’t as bad as Spider-Man 3. Again, without giving anything away, there were major jumps that were made story wise where I feel it would have been better if it was fleshed out a bit more, or even saved for the next movie. Harry Osbourne’s story line had a lot of potential but it went by so fast that it lost a lot in translation. I feel that the Osbourne story line deserved its own movie instead of being tacked on to Electro’s story.
Finally, I’m torn about Jamie Foxx. I like him a lot and his Electro was good, but my problem was with how his character was written. A great actor can only do so much with what (s)he’s given. (Picture Gregory Peck in a movie written by Stephanie Meyer, even he’s not good enough to pull that off.) My problem with the writing of Maxwell Dillion (Electro) was that the writers tried to make him sympathetic when he was never a sympathetic character in the comics. So he goes from being a sad dork to a deranged super villain a little too quick in my eyes.
For the last good thing before the spoiler section I want to hit on the fact that I’m glad that Gwen Stacy finally got some love. The Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies focused on Mary Jane Watson, and that’s fine because she’s the biggest love of his life, but Gwen Stacy helped make Peter Parker who he was. She was there while he was learning to be Spider-Man. Even though the comics are all about Mary Jane these days, for obvious reasons, it’s good to see that Marc Webb and the writers showed Gwen Stacy some love. Also, how awesome is it that the new director’s name is Webb. I mean come on, it couldn’t be any better!
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a fun movie that I enjoyed from beginning to end. I’d gladly go see it again even with all the problems I just got done listing. In the end, the pros outweighed the cons and if you haven’t seen this already then find it in theaters if you can or just get it when it comes out. It’ll make a great addition to any collection and I put it up there with the likes of Captain America and Iron Man.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 gets a 9.5 out of 11.