Lake Charles, LA
I saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2 this weekend and I have to admit that I really enjoyed it for the most part. The story builds upon the events that occurred in The Amazing Spider-Man, picking up with our favorite wallcrawler having firmly established himself as the hero of NYC and about to graduate high school. Everything seems to be going fine for Spidey. He has a lovely girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, and has started making a little money by selling photos to the Daily Bugle (J. Jonah Jameson gets a few nods, albeit briefly and is never seen on the screen). Aunt May is making ends meet as well.
A couple of things from Spidey’s past are haunting him, though, and they rear their ugly heads at seemingly random times during Peter Parker’s day-to-day activities. He keeps thinking about the mysterious disapperance of his parents and starts to investigate what really happened to them. On top of that, he keeps remembering the promise he made to Gwen Stacy’s father that he would keep her safe from harm by distancing himself from her. He attempts to break up with her, but Gwen’s determination and charm and the overall love the pair shares for each other is stronger, and while Spidey does have a few misery-filled moments away from her, they eventually get back together.
While all of this is going on in Peter’s world, another individual is struggling with a little misery of his own. Max Dillon, an electrical engineer for OsCorp, lives an empty life. He’s extremely intelligent and has done brilliant things on the technology front, but he still goes about being a relative unknown and disliked and/or ignored by his co-workers. He ends up getting saved by Spider-Man, and Spidey tells him that he is important and that he helps Spider-Man fight crime by being his eyes on the street.
Then an accident occurs, and Dillon becomes Electro, a powerful being that can channel electricity and travel through it as well. All of sudden Max Dillon is getting the attention from everyone that he’s been begging for for many years and eventually something happens that turns him against Spider-Man and his love for the webslinger turns into vengeful hate.
Harry Osborn also pops onto the scene after being away for over about a decade. I’ll leave out the reasons for his return, but know that he is intent on getting a transfusion of blood from Spider-Man in order to cure an illness that he suffers from. He teams up with Electro whenever Spidey turns down Harry’s request, and the pair decide to wipe out the wallcrawler together.
What happens from there is an action-filled battle between Spider-Man, Electro, and Harry Osborn (they never officially call him Goblin, Green or Hob, but it looks like the studio wants him to be known as the Green Goblin, who is actually his father in the comics). Without giving too much away, I’ll state that there is one major, major occurrence in this film that comic readers are well aware of, and it hit the audience that I was in quite hard. I must assume that the majority of the people in the theater were unaware of certain events that took place in the comics, because there were gasps, crying, and questions about this one event. Just know that when it does take place, the actors involved nail the emotional strain with perfection.
Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Sally Field head up a fine cast of actors that make this film extremely enjoyable. I still enjoy the first two Sam Raimi flicks, but The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is definitely a step up from the first film in this reboot.
Now, to the “confusion” I alluded to in the title of this post. What’s confusing to me is how so many people were upset with the changes made in the first film in this series and now that the series is leaning a little bit more towards the books, they are getting even more upset. Yes, Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon was idiotic, but once he became Electro, I enjoyed the character a whole lot more. Yes, the Goblin was a bit underplayed in my opinion, but the event that he is part of was played out brilliantly, even by fooling folks a bit by having certain characters meet up on a bridge before the event happens (if you’ve read the comics, you know what happens on a bridge in the books). Rhino was totally wasted (and glaringly revealed the limitations of CGI) in his few brief moments on the screen, and the film served up a heaping helping of hints as to what villain(s) will be taking on Spidey in the next film, but ultimately it is a good film.
I appreciate Sony attempting to clean up a bit of the mess from the first filim and love the fact that they stayed pretty true to the books when it came to a certain character. In fact, the story managed to fit in three villains and used them in a way better than any other previous villain combo flick (I’m looking straight at you Batman Returns, Batman & Robin, Batman Forever, & Spider-Man 3). I would much rather see a hero take on one villain instead of two or three, but this film made it work fairly well.
I recommend everyone check out The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It’s a really fun film full of drama and action. Highly recommended.
Ken's Alternate Universe! 