The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro

One of my favourite parts about the movie was Peter Parker actually using Google. Unlike the first Spider-Man movie where he Bing’d everything which totally ruined the immersiveness. Peter Parker, who has genius level intellect would never use an inferior search engine. Thankfully they fixed it.
WARNING: Spoilers and stuff. Avert your eyes if you don’t like spoilers. Also, Snape kills Dumbledore.
I walked out of the cinema feeling unsatisfied. Like how you feel when you go for dinner where the food is decent but the portions are tiny. For some reason, it felt a lot like walking about of Spider-Man 3 (the Sam Raimi one) except that it didn’t tank as hard.
Andrew Garfield is the perfect Peter Parker. Charming, emotional, witty and cocky — he embodies everything Spider-Man should be. The movie starts out on an exhilirating note, with the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man whizzing and zipping around New York fighting crime. The best part of the show was hands down, the web slinging. They’ve perfectly captured the way Spider-Man moves around, how he fights crime underscored by Andrew Garfield’s brilliant take on the Amazing Spider-Man.
You’ll chuckle a lot at his quips and one-liners that he slings around at breakneck speed. Spider-Man loves being Spider-Man and it shows in the movie.
The second most enjoyable thing about the movie was the on-screen chemistry between Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy. The movie takes its time, exploring and expanding on the dynamics of Gwen & Peter, as they both grapple with Peter’s crime fighting duties and Gwen’s studies. Marb Webb does an excellent job making you love the both of them as well as portraying Peter’s struggles in balancing love and saving New York from crime.
The soundtrack in any movie is like good cologne when you’re on a date. Just like body odour, if a movie has lacklustre music you instantly pick up on it and it ruins the entire encounter. The Amazing Spider-Man has an impressive soundtrack and when the credits rolled I instantly knew why: it’s it was scored by Hans Zimmer and The Magnificent Six, which features Pharrell Williams, Johnny Marr (of The Smiths, Modest Mouse), Michael Einziger (of Incubus), Junkie XL, Andrew Kawczynski, and Steve Mazzaroritten. It features rocking guitar riffs and upbeat rhythms which really underscore the entire tone of the movie. Like good cologne, a good OST helps you leave the cinema with sweet satisfied memories of the movie.
What I didn’t like was Electro. Electro reminded me too much of the awful Spider-Man 3. Raimi’s Spider-Man 1 & 2 were great films not because they of Tobey, but because they had great villains. Electro just feels like a sparkly villain there to meet the quota of CGI special effects. They spend quite a bit of time setting his character up, showing you his motivations and the exact root of his evil but you never really empathise with him.
Get this, he’s a crazy Spider-Man fanatic, who has an inferiority complex/FOMO syndrome and goes crazy because Spider-Man forgot him and didn’t acknowledge him enough? Seriously, no one is buying that. They could’ve cut Electro out of the movie and it wouldn’t have suffered. He has pretty cool fight scenes with Spider-Man but that’s all there is.
I wish they’d have devoted more time to Harry Osborne’s character and his subsequent transformation to the Green Goblin. I would’ve liked it if we had more Green Goblin action, and for them to show us how he slowly descends into insanity because of the Goblin Serum (Spider-DNA in this movie) but he’s cool and I hope we see more of them.
The movie felt like it was choppily edited and it shows due to a number of scenes that were present in the trailers such as Harry confronting Peter, telling him he’s been watched which didn’t make it into the movie. The movie felt rushed, like it was trying too hard to get all the characters on screen, building up their stories and accelerating toward’s the film’s climax — something that Spider-Man 3 also suffered. Add to the fact that the film’s director also cut Mary Jane’s scenes in the movie and it’s telling that there was no cohesive vision to the movie.
There’s also a minor subplot involving Peter’s parents which I felt was a bit unnecessary and contrived. It was a whole lot of build up to a pretty tiny plot device — the Spider-DNA that Oscorp was distilling only works with Peter, because his father designed it so that it only worked with his blood. Meh.
I get what Sony wanted to accomplish. They’ve seen Disney’s success grow from strength to strength in crafting the Marvel Cinematic Universe and they want a piece of that delicious pie. That’s where The Amazing Spider-Man 2 stumbles the most. It tries too hard to set up a sequel, devoting too much resources and screen time to build Peter Parker’s world (and sequel) that it almost forgets that it also needs to be a standalone movie.
Contrast this with how Marvel handles their movies. The bulk of their movie tells a story about the titular character, with small hints of a larger universe thrown in here and there before the hype train picks up full steam when the end-credits scene roll. By then, you’re satisfied because you just watched a great movie, and you’re so pumped for the next.
That said, I have to give props to Marc Webb for beautifully handling Gwen Stacy’s death. It was soul crushing. I think I teared up a little. It was pretty obvious since the start, because the movie tries too hard to highlight the themes of life, death and moving on but when it happens, it still hit me hard. And I already knew it was going to happen.
I’m pretty sad that Emma Stone won’t be returning for more. She’s the perfect companion to Andrew Garfield and it was a shame that she wasn’t cast as Mary Jane. Whoever they cast next needs to fill some pretty huge shoes.
I like Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. Together with Emma Stone, they carried the show and made up for the shallow plot. The movie ends with a big set-up for the Sinister 6, Spider-Man’s new foes and a Harry Osborne bent on revenge. I just hope it’ll be a lot more cohesive than this one. I also want it to be a lot less heavy and deliver on more light-hearted comic book fun. Everyone seems to be making gritty superhero movies and it’s high time we get one where the superhero kicks ass on screen, enjoys and relishes in his job as a superhero.