The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Say what you will about the rapid reboot of the Spider-Man character after Sam Raimi's trilogy, but 'The Amazing Spider-Man' was a pretty decent film. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I was eager to see what they would come up with in the sequel.

Maybe I shouldn't have been.

The story picks up a while after the first one. Peter Parker is now fully confident in his role as Spider-Man and things seem to be working out. That is, until a couple of things happen that turn everything upside down (because of course they do). We get the emergence of a new villain, Electro, coupled with the return of Harry Osborn, who apparently was good friends with Peter when they were young, but who is now dying of the same disease that his father had. It's not easy to juggle all this stuff.

Which is probably why this film misses the mark on several instances.

But let's start with the good stuff. Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man works for me. He is cocky, funny and can be serious when he wants to be. I like his range and in all fairness: I prefer him to Tobey Maguire's version. Maguire always felt a little too downplayed, a little too angsty. Garfield has more of that arrogant tone, but in a fun way. Check the opening where he is smack talking the future Rhino (oh, we'll get to that). Sally Field is also a very good Aunt May. If there is one scene that is probably the best on an emotional level, it's the one where she is talking to Peter about his father in Peter's bedroom, stating that he left his son and that Peter in fact is more her child, because she took care of him. That is a great scene and because Field is a total pro, it is believable and hits you in the feels. And even though they don't do a lot with him, I enjoy Jamie Foxx as Electro. I like the look, which is more akin to that of Ultimate Spider-Man's version, and his design feels right. That a loner, shunned by most people would turn evil when given godlike powers isn't that far fetched either.

Also: this film really gives you the feeling of swinging through New York with the wallcrawler. Really, it does. The cinematography and special effects of these scenes are really, really cool.

But unfortunately, all is not well with this film. But where to start?

Well, the on-again-off-again relationship with Gwen Stacy is tiresome. Seriously: you can pull this stuff once (like in the first film), but that constant game of pingpong gets really old really fast. Also, it slows the film down to a crawl. Why did they leave it in here? I have no idea. Just leave the two as a couple instead of that extra forced conflict.

Harry Osborn shouldn't have been in this film as much as he was. There. You could introduce him, and then make him the central villain of a third installment. But right now? He wasn't needed and bloated the story (which was already pretty bloated to start with). The studio wanted to force a sequel by introducing several elements, but as we all know: that didn't quite work out as planned.

Again with the absentee father-schtick? Really?

Moving on.

As much as I can enjoy Jamie Foxx as Electro, when he is just Max Dillon, he is grating. He is portrayed like every clichéd nerd that Hollywood could think of, and that is incredibly lazy writing. It is so lazy, even a team of thirty monkeys with typewriters would throw poo at the numbnuts who wrote him like this. Honestly, I'm actually a little offended that the smart guy is once again a social outcast who dresses funny, wears glasses and has weird hair. As if every smart guy in the world actually wears glasses and dresses funny.

The fact that I wear glasses and dress funny for my age with my chosen type of shirts has nothing to do with this. I am not projecting anything, honest. 

But what really, REALLY is horrendous, is that after the climactic battle with Electro (which was okay and a decent way to end the film), it isn't over, oh no! Suddenly the Green Goblin arrives for another five minutes and we get a fight culminating in Gwen Stacy's death. Why? First off, it should have been for a follow-up film. Secondly: the Green Goblin looks hilarious. It's too ugly to be cool and too 'realistic' to be scary. Dane DeHaan just looks awful in that bizarre make-up. Either go all out, like the silly costume Willem Dafoe wore, or keep it more low key, but this is just fugly.

Also: nice way to wrap up your film with this. Idiots.

And as if that wasn't enough, you even get a final final final battle with the Rhino that ends just before it begins, because hellooo sequel! That didn't happen because this film flopped. So there.

You see, one last bizarre thing is that this film constantly flipflops between serious, more grounded stuff and over the top campiness, thus resulting in being neither and confusing. Why was the weird doctor in Ravencroft there? Why is Jamie Foxx a bumbling idiot? Why are some things suddenly so cartoonish, when the rest is more serious? Make up your mind!

This is a prime example of why a lot of the time, you have to trim the fat and make more conscious decisions, instead of just throwing everything at once at the viewer and hoping that it will stick. It won't, and as a result, this is a very unbalanced film that has moments of greatness, but a whole lot of garbage.

A shame, really. If they kept it more focused, it probably would have been better and we would have gotten the third part with the Sinister Six.