Sometimes it pays to go in with lowered expectations. With that, you are usually pleasantly surprised. Now I'm sure producers don't like to hear that kind of talk, but that was the exact experience I had with The Amazing Spider 2 (TAS2 for the sake of brevity). Full disclosure now, I saw the first one and absolutely loved it, so I was excited to see what would be cranked out in TAS2. When I saw the first posters and clips, my heart sank. What I saw promised to be yet another overblown crapfest that collapses under its own weight a la Iron Man 2, Spider-Man 3, all three of the Star Wars prequels, and yes, even The Avengers. But surprise of surprises, TAS2 turned out to be pretty good. I expected a film just overblown with sequelitis, but instead got a fairly good time.
TAS2 picks up right where TAS1 left off, where Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is going into college, dealing with life, his job at the Daily Bugle and his way-out-of-his-league girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). The mutated spider program was killed at Oscorp and the corporation is handed over to Harry Osbourne, son of Norman, Oscorp's disgraced and now deceased founder. Harry and Peter are childhood friends as their fathers worked together in the past. More light is shed on the shady events surrounding Peter's parents' death. In comes Max Dillon (Jaime Foxx), a socially inept electrical engineer who works for Oscorp and is transformed into Electro, a tragic villain who can absorb and expel electricity. There is a big fight, Harry takes up the mantle of the Green Goblin and something else happens to Gwen to which all Spider-Man fans are aware (issue 121).
This is not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. The story is a little big for the time allowed, but it is a good one. Andrew Garfield is an amazing standout for Peter Parker, MUCH better than Tobey Macguire, himself not half bad. But Garfield is Peter, a gawky kid (in real life 25) who is a genius, but is struggling to deal with his two lives. Emma Stone is great as Gwen, much closer to the original comic than Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane. I am not trashing Macguire and Dunst. They are fine. But Garfield and Stone are almost cut from the pages of the source. My only issue with them, Stone in particular, is how they are represented. I realize this is a comic book story and some suspension of disbelief is necessary, but are we really expected to believe Gwen Stacy's character? There is literally nothing wrong with her. A college freshman who looks like she walked out of an Abercrombie ad, slutty-good-girl clothes and all, works as a senior lab tech for one of the most prestigious labs in the world and is being considered for an Oxford scholarship. She is a wonderful person and is the perfect girlfriend. I half-expected her to be volunteering at a vegan animal shelter saving kittens on the street. There is trouble in paradise, however, as her Oxford opportunity is straining her relationship with Peter.
The biggest casualties in this movie are Max and Harry. The movie tries to portray both of their villainhoods as tragic consequences beyond their control. But we can't get invested enough in their stories to really care because no real time is spent on their motivations. Thus, the movie throws away a golden opportunity to use the talents of an Oscar winning actor by making him, at times, a cross between Inspector Cleuseau/Dopey on the one hand and Jesse Ventura/Hitler on the other. Neither work particularly well, but there is some pathos there. Harry, on the other hand, starts as a tragic figure, turns into a rich, spoiled brat, to a bizarro offspring of the Joker and Minnie Pearl. This Goblin, while better than the original Spideys, comes off goofily scary. They also introduce the Rhino at the end, but this feels shoehorned in so the producers can set up The Sinister Six (Non-geeks, don't worry. It will come up later). In the end, I say to you, don't believe the critics. It's not bad, and fairly brainless fun. Worth a watch.
Just don't expect TOO much.
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