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| Courtesy of Sony |
The
Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the embodiment of studio-mandated, design-by-committee
filmmaking. It’s big, it’s loud, it’s 30 minutes too long and a ton of money
goes into creating action sequences that you forget about almost as soon as
they’re over. Still, it ends up being a mostly decent movie thanks to genuinely
talented actors who bring far more heart and humor to the story than the screenplay
(credited to Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner) deserves.
At
least it’s better than the first one, but that’s not a difficult hurdle to
clear considering 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man was the character’s second
origin story in 10 years. Why should audiences have to sit through that twice
when even people who’ve never seen a comic book know how Peter Parker got his unique
abilities? With all of the unnecessary setup out of the way, director Marc Webb
is finally able to breathe some fresh air into the titular hero. (Well, as much
as Sony’s investors allow him to, anyway.)
Sometime
following the events of the first flick, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is
getting used to being Spider-Man. He’s even having a little bit of fun, an
element that was sorely lacking the first time around. What he can’t handle is staying
away from the lovely Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), which he promised her dying father
he would do. He’s torn between his love for her and his desire to keep her safe
from the rapidly increasing number of enemies he’s making as a superhero.
After
high school graduation, he’s forced to make a choice. Does he give up the crime-fighting
life to follow Gwen as she achieves her dream of attending Oxford? Or does he
stay in New York to find out what really happened to his parents? Peter’s decision
is further complicated by the emergence of a new villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx),
and the reappearance of an old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), who’s now
the de facto leader of Oscorp following the death of his father (Chris Cooper).
Those
familiar with the comics can guess the inevitable outcome, but I’ve got to hand
it to the creative team for having the guts to go there – especially considering
what a massive absence that will leave in the sequel. (And there’s definitely
going to be a sequel considering this one’s nothing but two-and-a-half hours of
setup.) I’m speaking as vaguely as I can to avoid spoilers, but that’s tough to
do when it’s one of the flick’s most effective and powerful scenes.
As
with the first entry, the primary reason The Amazing Spider-Man 2 succeeds at
all is the insane chemistry between Garfield and Stone. They’re both great
actors on their own, but when they share the screen together…holy cow. It’s no
wonder they became a couple off screen while shooting the previous installment.
Garfield,
though tough to buy as a recent high school grad (he’s almost 31), brings a vivacious,
wisecracking energy to Spider-Man that Tobey Maguire’s version often lacked. The
screenplay still forces him to resort to emo, Twilight-y moping in a few
scenes without the mask – a decidedly un-Peter Parker trait – but he makes it
work through talent and sheer force of will. He’s particularly good in his
scenes with a young kid that Spider-Man encounters a couple of times throughout
the movie. He also has an interesting rapport in his scenes with DeHaan; it’s not
quite friendly, but not outright antagonistic either. It makes brief their
confrontation in the last act much stronger than it actually is.
Stone
continues her recent trend of portraying intelligent, no-nonsense women who are
much stronger than the movie surrounding them (see Gangster Squad or, better
yet, don’t). She doesn’t get much to do as the love interest – an occupational
hazard for women starring in comic book flicks – but boy does she make it count
when called on to perform. I’m still waiting for a filmmaker to give her another
role worthy of the talent she displayed in Easy A and Crazy Stupid Love. Fortunately, she just worked with Woody Allen and Cameron Crowe, both known for
writing strong female characters, so fingers crossed.
The
rest of the cast doesn’t come off as well. Sally Field (as Aunt May) and Cooper
are good, but they’re barely in the movie. DeHaan is also compelling, but he
suffers the same fate as Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining – it’s
tough to make his turn to the dark side much of a surprise when he seems nuts
from the beginning. From the time he’s introduced getting out of a limo, the
audience is just waiting for him to strap on his character’s famous armor.
However,
the biggest victim of the overstuffed narrative is Foxx. The screenplay
attempts a sympathetic origin story for his villainous character, but he’s
asked to play someone so uninteresting that it’s tough to care. Any time he’s
on screen vowing to destroy Spider-Man, the audience knows he’s just the guy
our hero has to take down before he can fight the big boss. It’s rudimentary video
game logic.
While
I didn’t love The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it’s still a vast improvement over
its predecessor. Now that Webb has spent five hours and $400 million finding his
footing, maybe the next installment will truly be the amazing experience the franchise
has, so far, failed to live up to.
The
Amazing Spider-Man 2 is rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action/violence.
Grade:
B-
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