Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

When Sam Raimi released Spider-Man 2 back in 2004 it surprised everybody by being just as good as the original and, in some minds, perhaps even better. Then, in 2012, The Amazing Spider-Man was met with decent reviews and box office success, leaving fans yearning for a sequel from director Marc Webb that could live up to the previous Spidey sequel’s quality.

Set after Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy’s graduation from high school, The Amazing Spider-Man does its best to increase the stakes from the first instalment: bigger budget, better CGI, and more superhero/super-villain clashes. However, this does not pay off as well as one would hope. The film frustratingly always feels like it is about to get really good, but never does. In what might be seen as a middle finger to the disappointing Spider-Man 3. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 attempts to do what Raimi could not by juggling three villains to deal with along with his rocky love life and the pressures of his media presence. What this leads to is a film that goes on far too long yet simultaneously needs more exposition and character development for us to care about what’s happening.

What made Spider-Man 2, in my opinion, the best superhero movie to date was that there was a significant build up to Dr. Octopus’ reveal and. With him being the only antagonist, the film could spend plenty of time showing his motivation, creating a truly memorable villain. What we have in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a bloated blockbuster that spends a fraction of the amount of time on each villain that they deserve.

Jamie Foxx’s Electro is interesting and nicely sinister, but his backstory of a loser angry at the world who rejected him feels clumsy and his main motivations are never really clear. Dane DeHaan gives a great performance, and could potentially be a better Green Goblin than Willem Dafoe. Unsurprisingly, he is never onscreen long enough to leave a lasting impression. Then there’s Rhino, the biggest disappointment, who featured relatively prominently in the marketing for the film and yet is only there in the first and final five minutes.

The other focus of the film is Peter and Gwen’s relationship. While Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst’s interactions seemed forced and were at times annoying, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s characters work well with each other. Unfortunately, because the film set itself so many challenges to work with, Stone is not present for as much time as viewers may want.

Overall, this film is not remarkable, and is probably tied with Spider-Man 3 for the title of worst Spider-Man film. There will be better films, superhero or otherwise, to see this summer, and – just a hint Hollywood – a movie that drags for two and a half hours and then has a cliffhanger, sequel-baiting ending isn’t all that fun to watch.

Images courtesy of sciencefiction.com, digitalspy.co.uk, and cineworld.co.uk