Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro (2014)

It really is kind of hard talking about this movie without addressing the elephant in the room -- this was the movie that performed so poorly that the movie series got essentially axed, and caused Sony to basically reboot the franchise and decide to share Spider-Man with the MCU. Now, that's not to say that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 doesn't have its good parts, but the fact that it did kind of flop does really show how much more critical the audience is towards superhero movies nowadays. 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is hardly the worst superhero movie out there (that dishonour goes to Fant4stic) and I'd argue that the problems it has is shared by many other superhero movies. It's just that the superhero movie market was extremely competitive, and thanks to the MCU, the standard has been raised. That said, Amazing Spider-Man 2 is hardly free of flaws, and compared to its predecessor, is most certainly an inferior outing for the web-slinger. 

The movie starts off with a bit of an extended elaboration of the fate of Peter Parker's parents, showing them being killed by an assassin on a plane, and their last act was to upload some data. This starts off one of the four 'main' storylines in the movie, all of which really vie for attention and screentime and not a single one of the three main storylines really end up being done well. 

The next main story being told is Peter and Gwen's relationship, and...  and we did go through a version of this in the Sam Raimi movies with Peter and Mary Jane, but all throughout the movie, Peter is basically haunted by the words of George Stacy demanding that Peter stay away from Gwen, otherwise she will get hurt. We get to see this when Peter fights Aleksei Systevich (a.k.a. Rhino) in the movie's opening action scene, and later on they break up after their graduation. A lot of the individual scenes between Peter and Gwen are actually done very, very well. It's just that they aren't paced and arranged particularly well in the movie. 

The movie immediately jumps to another new plot, introducing one of Peter Parker's quintessential supporting cast, Harry Osborn. Harry meets his jackass dad Norman, who last movie implies is dying from an incurable disease. Norman tells Harry that the genetic disease will soon manifest in him, before dying, and Harry has to face the cutthroat world of the Oscorp board. Harry also befriends Peter, and... okay, that scene where Peter and Harry bond together is done well, and I think that's a bit of a running theme here. A lot of the scenes are done well, the actors do their best, but there's not enough room for these storylines to grow organically or to be paced as part of an epic saga. 

Speaking of 'epic saga', we get the primary antagonist of the movie, Electro. Who has nearly nothing to do with any of the other plots in the movie thematically. He later strikes up a tangential alliance with Harry, but otherwise poor, poor Electro is just kind of there. Now, don't get me wrong, Jamie Foxx's performance is the standout winner in this movie, and he's easily the best part of the movie. There's just something so amazing in the transformation from the downtrodden Max Dillon who revolves his life around Spider-Man when Spider-Man rescues him earlier in the movie... and when he gets transformed into the confused electrical monster Electro after your typical sci-fi supervillain origin accident... you really feel for the guy. You really feel just how frustrated he is that everyone in his life ignores him, how he resorts to merely imagining standing up for himself, how he bakes birthday cakes for himself... and the sheer confusion he feels as he wanders around Times Square... Spider-Man even almost reaches him before a complete misunderstanding escalates the situation, which makes Electro's situation so much more tragic. Everything about that story -- especially that badass soundtrack -- was delivered beautifully. 

Unfortunately, that's about when the movie goes high-gear in jumping around plot points. We've got Gwen going to England and Peter going through a crisis on what's important in his life. Electro gets shipped off to Ravencroft Institute and experimented upon for all of five minutes. Harry gets into a fight with Peter and later Spider-Man because he wants to use Spider-Man's blood to make a cure. Harry also gets embroiled in finding out about Oscorp experimenting on metahumans like Electro, and gets framed by Oscorp's vice-president. Harry and Electro join forces, only to split up -- Electro goes to the grid, while Harry steals a suit of armour and a glider from Oscorp and mutates into the Green Goblin. Also, Peter finds out a bunch of things left behind by Richard Parker, finds Richard's secret train car base, and finds out that his dad is a hero after all. 

You can see why the movie kind of gets a bit confusing at this point. Some of them really end up feeling like they don't add too much into the story -- especially the Richard Parker stuff, which really doesn't tell us anything new that the previous movie hasn't already told us before. Harry and Electro teaming up also feels like something very awkward because it lasts only for around five minutes before the two go their entirely separate ways... Electro's relatively simple story (especially post-Times-Square) is extended pretty lengthily throughout the third act of the movie, while Harry's story doesn't have any room to breathe and his descent into blaming Peter Parker for all his problems feels so rushed. 

Peter and Gwen fight against Electro in the city's power plant, and... it's a pretty cool fight. Electro's honestly pretty damn cool all around. With Gwen's scientific know-how, Peter ends up jury-rigging some anti-electro web-shooters, and overload Electro and blow him up. Harry Osborn shows up, cackles and gives a monologue about how Peter has ruined his life,  and does the iconic comic-book thing of killing Gwen Stacy. 

There is an epilogue afterwards that show Harry in jail, Peter mourning, and later deciding to become Spider-Man again to protect New York from Aleksei, who has became the Rhino with aid of some Osborn-supplied powered armour.

...and sure, the final shot of the movie is triumphant. But ultimately, the movie still ends on a dour note after a very messy final act. I really do feel like they had a bunch of stories they want to tell, and they decided to extend the least interesting one. As much as Electro was entertaining, his story is also the one that's the most removed from everyone else's and he's just... a threat, you know? Whereas Harry Osborn killing Gwen Stacy should be a huge, grand event... but it feels like a random coda tacked on that completely screws up Peter and Gwen's struggles throughout the rest of the movie. It'd be one thing if Harry was built up a bit better, or if Peter and Gwen resolved their problems a bit earlier, but the rather muddled pacing really does make the death feel very much like something tacked on just to raise drama. It's not the fact that Gwen Stacy dies (many superhero movies have great endings because of a death) but it's the way that the movie really doesn't built up to it properly.

It's a bit of a shame, really, that the movie is so stuffed. I didn't even get to mention how the movie is also overstuffed with cameos by other characters. Black Cat, Spider-Slayer, dr. Ashley Kafka, the Gentleman all have minor roles in the movie in their civilian identities, and there's also the gimmick weapons of Vulture and Dr. Octopus. They're definitely trying to ape the MCU method of world-building, and that's sure admirable, but when the rest of the movie is way too cluttered. It's still a serviceable action movie, and I did enjoy the movie for what it is, but with the expectations put up to it, I can see why the studio ended up pulling the plug on this series.