DVD The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Run time: 142 min
Rating: 7.4
Genres: Action | Adventure | Fantasy
Director: Marc Webb
Writers: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx
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Storyline We’ve always known that Spider-Man’s most important conflict has been within himself: the struggle between the ordinary obligations of Peter Parker and the extraordinary responsibilities of Spider-Man. But in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker finds that his greatest battle is about to begin. It’s great to be Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield). For Peter Parker, there’s no feeling quite like swinging between skyscrapers, embracing being the hero, and spending time with Gwen (Emma Stone). But being Spider-Man comes at a price: only Spider-Man can protect his fellow New Yorkers from the formidable villains that threaten the city. With the emergence of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Peter must confront a foe far more powerful than he. And as his old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, Peter comes to realize that all of his enemies have one thing in common: Oscorp. Directed by Marc Webb. Produced by Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach. Screenplay by Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci & Jeff Pinkner. Screen… Written by Sony Pictures Entertainment |
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Plot Keywords: super villain, battle, marvel comics, returning character killed off, taser | |
Details: Country: USA Release Date: 16 April 2014 (UK) |
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Box Office Budget: $200,000,000 (estimated) Opening Weekend: $91,608,337 (USA) (2 May 2014) Gross: $201,597,625 (USA) (11 July 2014) |
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4 comments
When the Amazing Spider-Man appeared I was like "why would you do a remake of a not so old movie?" and I was really disappointed with it. However,this time I was surprisingly shocked to see how much it stepped up, it was better than any Spider-Man movie I ever watched.
I first need to say that the director did a great job in twisting the plot and changing it to fool us a big time, I will not spoil the movie. Also the acting was phenomenal, the villains were right on track, and speaking of tracks the soundtrack was a killer, this Johann Strauss II is a genius, adding futuristic sounds to comprehend the sound of electricity, with his music you can actually cry to dubstep.
I can't say I went in to the theater with high hopes. I did enjoy the first installment of this unnecessary reboot, almost anything seemed like a step up from "Spiderman 3", and Garfield felt way more natural than Maguire, and Emma Stone is always welcome. But after seeing the first trailer I thought it seemed like a total mess, and I wasn't convinced by Electro one bit. Unfortunately I was spot on, I hoped to at least get an enjoyable time at the cinema with my friends, but ended up feeling quite uncomfortable and laughing throughout most of the film.
Garfield and Stone has their chemistry and does their best with the incredibly thin script and cheesy one-liners, but their potential quite beautiful scenes together gets lost in the over-full and messy plot. I can't buy an emotional scene that is interrupted by heavy dub-step and a blue electric guy.
Oh Jamie Foxx, how did you go from Django to this? Before he goes all CGI-Electro he tries to play the nerdy unseen scientist (with a worse comb-over than Christian Bale's 'Hustle'-look). As Electro it's hard to say how much is his fault, and what can be blamed on the rest, I'd go with the rest. You don't sympathize with him nor do you believe how fast he becomes this super-villain.
Everything that Dane DeHaan did so well in "Chronicle" just feels unnatural and (maybe not misplaced, but wrong) here. And his character development is way too rushed and quite unnecessary for this film, it just becomes another sub-plot standing in the way of what really matters.
Sally Field does good work as Aunt May, but leaves no lasting mark. Paul Giamatti's Russian criminal is just in the way and only gives a couple of dreadful and laughable scenes. And then there's the mad German scientist named Kafka and I rest my case.
The action and visuals isn't bad, but still doesn't make up for the low "trying to be Marvel"-comedy and horrific soundtrack, a soundtrack that almost itself destroys the film throughout the exhausting 142 minutes. And sometimes it feels like the movie is taking us as an audience to be stupid, with pointers to what is going to happen. I would like to say that you might enjoy it if you just try and see it for what it is, but it's hard, but hopefully possible! It had an interesting start, with a glimpse inside the past and Peter's parents, but it's left underdeveloped, as is almost everything else, to make room for all its action and villains.
It's amazing how the difference between two big-budget superhero-movies can be so huge, if you put this against "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", a great and, opposed to this one, original film.
Oh how I wish that Marc Webb could have continued with a "(500) Days of Summer"-esque movie instead, he could keep the sub-plots starring Garfield, Stone and DeHaan, and it could very well be a great film, and probably not such a waste of talent.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has technical merits. However, these merits are impossible to enjoy in a film drowned from beginning to end in the sickening narcissism of both its purported hero and supposedly tragic villains.
I give you The Amazing Spider-Man: a hero with no principles and no goals. He sometimes cares about a girl and sometimes wants to know what happened to his parents, but day-to-day he really only cares about doing what he wants to do–which happens to be helping people, it seems, because it gives them "hope." And what luck! He gives them this just by being himself. Not by being a better person. Not by sacrificing anything else in his life for the greater good. Just by being strong and smart and doing exactly what he feels like doing because that's how he feels. And look: by being himself, other people want to be like him. What a wonderful message for a self-obsessed age. And watching the box office dollars roll in, it would seem that this is just what everyone wants to hear.
Ah, but lovable doe-eyed Petey gives up Gwen for the greater good, right? No he doesn't. He gives her up because he can't face the guilt of having contributed to her father's death–his guilt, and his unquestioned inability to give up being a famous public figure, lead to his need to break up (And his principled stand on this issue is so strong that he will renege on it whenever he feels randy). We never see Peter torn between helping people and helping himself. We see him torn between two paths to self-gratification: the adulation of public heroism (and public vilification, which is a kind of adulation) and the love of a single woman. What about Aunt May? No, not her–she's just in the way of Spidey laundry.
This is the major problem with the reboot: The overshadowing death isn't Uncle Ben's. It's Captain Stacy's. And Captain Stacy didn't die because Peter was self-absorbed. Captain Stacy died because Peter existed. So the standard for Peter being a good person or bad person has nothing to do with his character–it has only to do with his presence. During an over-the-top car chase in the first act, rather than stop a massive truck from smashing through a set of cars (which Sam Raimi has shown us he could have done, assuming equivalence between a truck and a train), Spidey ducks out of the way only to come back after the carnage. This is a hero who says, "I'm here for you–until it's inconvenient for me, then you're on your own."
The long and short of it is that this Spider-Man is in no way heroic. Superheroes are heroic because, while they could decide that they are unconcerned with our struggles, they still feel a moral obligation to help the average Joe. This Spider-Man seems to feel obliged to help only because, as someone superior to everyone else, the world's problems must naturally fall on his shoulders. Not because someone died due to his inaction–because he's exceptional. And helping inferior people is what exceptional people do. Sometimes. When they're not busy dealing with exceptional-person stuff. Like obsessing about parents who unjustly abandoned them while feeling no responsibility whatsoever for the uncle they themselves abandoned.
Add to this a pair of villains who go from being apparently well-meaning if somewhat imbalanced individuals to homicidal maniacs due to a single rejection episode, and you have a two-hour cesspool of poorly justified destructive self-obsession.
Electro could have been a tragic Frankenstein villain. Instead, because a group of random people roots for Spider-Man over him in his first public appearance, he decides everyone should die. Yup–that's his motivation. You don't love me because I'm me? Well, I'll kill you all. Thank you, Columbine.
Harry's the same. After a five-minute meeting in which Spider-Man refuses give him his blood–which he truly believes, based on a single night's research on a single computer file, is the only thing that can save him from a horrible death that won't happen for another 40 years–Harry decides that Spider-Man needs to die right now. And everyone who dies in the process of saving his own old-age skin is perfectly okay. This despite Harry having been Peter's best friend only 48 hours before–though not because they have a long history together, but because they talked for a few hours and remembered how they were friends eight years ago. And it's not like either of them developed any other close relationships over their entire time in high school and college. (Let that be the only mention I will make of this film's preposterous set of causes and effects–and its Attack-of-the-Clones-inspired need to intellectually dictate emotional importance rather than meaningfully display it.)
The original Spider-Man had a single moment of narcissism. Count 'em: one. Only once did Peter Parker step up for glory, himself, and his own objectives, and he immediately paid for it with the death of one of the only three people he loved. This new Peter Parker steps up for himself every day as a part of his playground vision of a hero, and not a single screenwriter or billion-dollar audience member seems to care. This Spider-Man says the world should glorify you for being you, and if that doesn't happen, it's the world that needs to change, not you. And that is what truly terrifies me.
I just came back from seeing The Amazing Spiderman 2…. Wow. I was really disappointed.
I can't say I went in to the theater with high hopes. I did enjoy the first installment of this unnecessary reboot, almost anything seemed like a step up from "Spiderman 3", and Garfield felt way more natural than Maguire, and Emma Stone is always welcome. But after seeing the first trailer I thought it seemed like a total mess, and I wasn't convinced by Electro one bit.
It was all over the place. After seeing this I can understand why Andrew Garfield wants to leave after the next installment. This train is going down and he wants to get off before he becomes a casualty. Sheesh!
The pacing is uneven, and the villain origins are rushed, and hence lose their believability even in the fictional comic-book universe of the movie. It's poor writing, once again the story seems rushed and choppy at times, basically cheesy at times.
From untrained eye there's a lot of loop holes and rhino was a waste and trailers shows we going to see rhino vs spiderman in 2 or 3 battles. False advertisement. plus there was a few cut scenes that were shown in trailers is the reason this movie. It shouldve let it be all about electro.
Not even picking on the poorly designed rhino or the nerdy electro being all fanboy over Spider-Man even talking to himself to a spidey picture. The movie was just said and a major let down and nowhere near epic like Captain America 2.
I prefer well written and executed characters over flashy characters any day,
I don't blame the actors for this mess. The blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of Marc Webb and the writers! Just give the cinematic rights to the character back to MARVEL/Disney productions! Clearly you don't know what to do with him!!