The Amazing Spider-Man 2

It's very easy to be cynical about the production and gross commoditization of Hollywood blockbusters. These films are products more often than not based on some preexisting IP meant to make 750 million dollars at the box office worldwide and another quarter in ancillary products. This business isn’t new to Hollywood, but when you walk into a film knowing that there are already release dates for another film and 2 spinoffs, it's easy to be cynical about the product you see. All of this wouldn't matter if the film in question was any good.

The Amazing Spider-Man was a perfunctory reboot that did not light the world on fire. As known as the story it was trying to tell, with a ham-fisted conspiracy plot added on top of it. Director Marc Webb at least executed a film that was of component quality. It was a film that was carried on the charm of its leads Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone and little else. Now two years later, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has arrived and it feels like it was made by two different people and then brought together forming some ungodly Frankenstein's Monster of blockbuster cinema. There are two distinct sides of this film: the bombast CGI heavy blockbuster and the near Mumblecore in comparison film between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, an on again off again couple trying to figure out where they are going next. Unsurprisingly this leads to major tonal dissonance. This dissonance is just a symptom of the real disease: the screenplay by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Jeff Pinkner.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are Hollywood’s go to duo for scripting blockbusters and perhaps the worst writers currently working in this field. With credits including the truly awful Transformers 2 and Star Trek Into Darkness, the pair have a consistent style of writing plot heavy scripts that operate more on the sheer nature of how we consume narrative and “gee wouldn’t that be cool thinking” than any theory of character. As it stands Amazing Spider-Man 2 is overlong, stuffed and under developed.

It is driven by heavy expositional dialog, there is barley a scene that goes by without someone or something explains something to you instead of showing it. After the first major fight with Electro, there is a hamfisted moment in which it is explained why Spidey wasn’t fried like everyone else. It’s one of many examples of characters explaining plot points to one another for no reason at all than to simply reiterate what the latest need is. All of this forgoes any sort of character development for it’s two major villains (Paul Giamatti as Aleksei Sytsevich is more of a bookend device and well used one at that) and main characters.

Like its predecessor, Amazing Spider-Man 2 begins in the past, a further exploration of Richard and Mary Parkers final days after they drop Peter off at Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s house. It’s the wrong flashback for this film and part of a plot that has no real emotional currency beyond the melodramatic angst brought forth by Garfield. The proper flashback would’ve been one between a young Peter Parker and Harry Osborn, played by Chronicle star Dane DeHaan, after the Parker’s died. Peter comes to the recently returned Harry after his own father dies. Harry as we are told there for Peter when his own parents died, we are never shown this, undercutting any sort of relationship between the two characters. As with most scenes in this film, they simply occur next to one another with no thought for a good transition or thematic consistence. Peter and Harry are back to being the best of friends just like that…even though they haven’t seen each other in ten year. This is a relationship that is built on prior history that is never enumerated for the audience. How was Harry there for him? This sort basic laying of an emotional foundation would have at least lessoned some of the emotional flatness found in the final act.

Dane DeHan gets off to a hot start as Harry Osborn, sharing an excellent scene that also serves as yet another major exposition dump with on screen father Norman (Chris Cooper). There is a broken, cast aside quality to him. All of this is soon thrown away once his undercooked subplot involving needing Spider-Man’s blood to help cure a genetic disease (he never bothered to look up) begins. DeHan chews scenery as a maniacal villain pretty well but it is one note and grows tiresome very fast.

That cannot be said for other big bad, Max Dillon played by Jamie Foxx. Director Marc Webb attempts to treat Max Dillon as a tragic figure; the script never puts forth anything that is tragic. Dillon is a nebbish electrical engineer, who after an encounter with Spider-man becomes his biggest fan. There was consistent mention of his building the electrical grid used by Oscorp, which they stole from him, but this ground for character motivation is never expounded upon. One fall into a vat of electric eels later, Dillon becomes Electro, a mustache twirling one line spitting villain. Why? Because people called him a freak and feels rejected by Spider-man, it’s cliché and at best lazy motivation. Electro is not a character in this film, he is a plot device made flesh and not even an interesting one at that. Foxx also chews scenery like DeHan, but becomes campest and least interesting of this films villains despite a major advantage in screentime. Jamie Foxx should not be faulted with his performance with what he is given to work with (next to nothing).

The tonal mess that is this movie often veers into the realm of camp, which isn’t a bad thing. It should be campy, Spidey is a wise cracking guy in blue and red spandex. Elector starts talking like the most cliché of villains. Camp isn’t this films problem. The usage of camp as character is where the film falters. The script doses nothing to endear any of the characters, leaving them as caricatures.

The sad thing is, Spider-man as he is depicted in Amazing Spider-Man 2 is perhaps the best depiction yet. Andrew Garfield continues to be spectacular as Peter Parker, finding the loner and eternal optimism central to the character as he is forced to confront the fact that all his perceptions where wrong. Spider-man himself is a work of digital wizardry more often than not and it is a sight to see. Spidey moves with the grace of a gymnast. Webb uses Matrix effects as a way of showing the spider sense and reinforces the time motif present throughout the film.

For its entire visual splendor, Amazing Spider-Man 2 emotional moments fall like a led zeppelin. Even as Webb tries his darndest to make a key point in Peter Parker’s life occur hit right in the gut. I was emotionally numbed to any of what was occurring. Partly due to the VFX heavy nature of the films final half but mainly due to how inept this film is at handling its characters.

The best thing Amazing Spider-man 2 dose is not feeling like just setup for the next entry in this franchise. Hints for sinister six and others are there but it does not have Iron Man 2 levels of shoehorned exposition for films in 2 years. That said with how dead this movie is why would you even want to see the next one? This is a franchise that is constantly being sold on the promise of the next hit and not on the current hit.