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Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes "It's a weird time to be Spider-Man. Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man,' which made its debut in 2002, proved (along with Brian Singer's 'X-Men,' released in 2000) that superhero movies could appeal to the mass market, provided they were done right. With or without his Spider-Man mask, Peter Parker (played in Raimi's movie and its two sequels by Tobey Maguire) made for an appealing presence, earnest and kind-hearted even as he punched and trash-talked villains.
A few years after the debut of 'Spider-Man,' Christopher Nolan began his 'Dark Knight' trilogy, and everything changed for the current iteration of superhero movies. Now Spider-Man's earnestness seemed a bit passé, overshadowed by Christian Bale-as-Batman's moral ambiguities and dour growl. With subsequent movies such as 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' and the 'Iron Man' trilogy, the genre deepened still further, more willing to reflect—as Raimi's Spider-Man never had—real-world issues such as terrorism, surveillance, and drones." Read on for the rest of Nerval's Lobster's review. 'Spider-Man 3' (2007) tried to get with the times by giving Maguire a black suit (courtesy of an alien symbiote) and a little bit of an attitude, an effort that pretty much everybody seems to view as a failure. As a character, Spider-Man needed to undergo a more careful revision—to become more nuanced and grounded, all without stripping the character of his agreeability. With 'The Amazing Spider-Man' (2012) and the new 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2,' director Marc Webb attempts to strike that balance, and for the most part he succeeds. His Spider-Man, as played by Andrew Garfield, comes off as a little more street-savvy and a whole lot less emo than Maguire, even if he does shed tears at key moments.
'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' features Spider-Man squaring off against Electro (Jamie Foxx) as well as the Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) and, briefly, the Rhino (Paul Giamatti). If you think that's too many villains for a feature film, you're right, although Webb manages to weave them into the plot with a bit more finesse than Raimi shoving a trio of wrongdoers into 'Spider-Man 3' (and at least the Green Goblin doesn't look like a Power Ranger this time around). Webb's other thread is the romance between Parker and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), which benefits from chemistry between the two leads, although it's ultimately eclipsed by the inevitable explosions, super-fights, and stunts. As Gwen, Stone gets the chance to play a role with a little more dramatic weight than the standard-issue damsel-in-distress, and late in the movie she gives a speech that virtually breaks the fourth wall to call out superhero movies on their tendency to reduce female characters to little more than eye candy... a speech that's interrupted within seconds by yet another super-powered brawl.
Webb tries to give his new movie some additional weight by making time a major theme. Characters mention they're running out of it; the first shot zooms out from a micro-shot of a wristwatch's gears; much later, the final battle takes place in a clock tower (and ends on a decidedly pessimistic note). In order to prevent the narrative from tumbling into a dour hole, Webb and Garfield try to give Parker some levity, whether he's taunting a would-be super-villain with a bullhorn or engaging in a webbing-powered slapstick routine right out of Buster Keaton. "He's releasing himself into the symbol that he's created," Garfield said in an interview. "He's enjoying the hell out of it while he's doing it."
Spider-Man will never be dark like Nolan's Batman—these movies have an obligation to be colorful and bombastic. But at least this new one gives the web-crawler some shading.
Rating: 8/10"
A few years after the debut of 'Spider-Man,' Christopher Nolan began his 'Dark Knight' trilogy, and everything changed for the current iteration of superhero movies. Now Spider-Man's earnestness seemed a bit passé, overshadowed by Christian Bale-as-Batman's moral ambiguities and dour growl. With subsequent movies such as 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' and the 'Iron Man' trilogy, the genre deepened still further, more willing to reflect—as Raimi's Spider-Man never had—real-world issues such as terrorism, surveillance, and drones." Read on for the rest of Nerval's Lobster's review. 'Spider-Man 3' (2007) tried to get with the times by giving Maguire a black suit (courtesy of an alien symbiote) and a little bit of an attitude, an effort that pretty much everybody seems to view as a failure. As a character, Spider-Man needed to undergo a more careful revision—to become more nuanced and grounded, all without stripping the character of his agreeability. With 'The Amazing Spider-Man' (2012) and the new 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2,' director Marc Webb attempts to strike that balance, and for the most part he succeeds. His Spider-Man, as played by Andrew Garfield, comes off as a little more street-savvy and a whole lot less emo than Maguire, even if he does shed tears at key moments.
'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' features Spider-Man squaring off against Electro (Jamie Foxx) as well as the Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) and, briefly, the Rhino (Paul Giamatti). If you think that's too many villains for a feature film, you're right, although Webb manages to weave them into the plot with a bit more finesse than Raimi shoving a trio of wrongdoers into 'Spider-Man 3' (and at least the Green Goblin doesn't look like a Power Ranger this time around). Webb's other thread is the romance between Parker and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), which benefits from chemistry between the two leads, although it's ultimately eclipsed by the inevitable explosions, super-fights, and stunts. As Gwen, Stone gets the chance to play a role with a little more dramatic weight than the standard-issue damsel-in-distress, and late in the movie she gives a speech that virtually breaks the fourth wall to call out superhero movies on their tendency to reduce female characters to little more than eye candy... a speech that's interrupted within seconds by yet another super-powered brawl.
Webb tries to give his new movie some additional weight by making time a major theme. Characters mention they're running out of it; the first shot zooms out from a micro-shot of a wristwatch's gears; much later, the final battle takes place in a clock tower (and ends on a decidedly pessimistic note). In order to prevent the narrative from tumbling into a dour hole, Webb and Garfield try to give Parker some levity, whether he's taunting a would-be super-villain with a bullhorn or engaging in a webbing-powered slapstick routine right out of Buster Keaton. "He's releasing himself into the symbol that he's created," Garfield said in an interview. "He's enjoying the hell out of it while he's doing it."
Spider-Man will never be dark like Nolan's Batman—these movies have an obligation to be colorful and bombastic. But at least this new one gives the web-crawler some shading.
Rating: 8/10"
No, it's a completely new movie. Different director, different plot, different cast and all. You could've just read the review, though, and answered the question yourself.
All these reboots and reboots of reboots are making me dizzy. Actually they've reached the point where I could care fucking less.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Kind of points out the absurd state of Hollywood that they have about a 5 year reboot cycle. I imagine a new set of Batman movies are due next year.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'm judging this based almost solely on the trailers, but the new Peter Parker does not seem dorky enough. He looks like they tried to make him into a hipster instead. The CGI in the trailers, especially for the second movie, makes me think "video game" more than "action movie". And all in all i just don't see the point of Spider-Man reboot so soon.
I've seen all the Marvel movies (great.) I saw Man of Steel (okay movie with significant problems that have already been hashed over.) I saw Wolverine (not perfect, but a lot better than the Origins movie). And i'm going to go see Days of Future Past. I have almost zero interest in seeing the second take of Spider-Man 2. Nothing this review has said really changes my opinion (i don't think Spider-Man really needed that much shading) and some of the things i've read in other reviews have helped bolster that opinion. (Rewriting Spider-Man's backstory via his parents to make him a "destined child" kind of strikes me as wrong.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Nerval's Lobster is out of his depth here.
We're still talking about reviewing a super-hero movie here, right? You may be taking this a little too seriously.
I am not a crackpot.
It's more about the absurdity of the specific rights to make Spiderman films. Sony loses them if they don't make any, that's why we had the reboot
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
It's exactly the same movie. Different costumes, differently named villains, different actors, exactly the same plot.
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I don't mind reboots when they bring something worth it to the table. I totally love Christopher Nolan's Batman-movies, for example, as they don't even try to present Batman as some high, respectable, totally-sane, funny and colourful superhero of the 90's -- *cough* George Cloney *cough* -- and they really bring out more what Batman is like. Man of Steel also tried to make Superman a deeper character than just a flying boy scout and while it wasn't all that good as a movie it at least tried to deviate from all the previous movies.
This has more to do with the state of the contracts. Sony and Fox are a bit scared to let the francises they have with Marvel comics characters slip back to Marvel and that is just what the contracts say if Sony and Fox aren't using the franchises they have.
I think reboots are for successive generations of moviegoers, moreso than for lifelong fans of a given franchise. If that were not true, the characters and plots would age and mature. (And by "generation," I just mean "people too young to see the previous iteration when it was new", not necessarily the children of the people who watched it new).
Well then go ahead... care less.
Must have been super recently!
Hollywood has all but given up on original content. There are more and easier profits to be had by adapting works in other media which will bring a built-in audience to the theaters.
That being said, I'm sick of comic book movies.
Worst list, ever.
No idea whether I should listen to Nerval's Lobster... but I've come to trust Moviebob, and I've never heard him pan a film like this, ever...
http://www.escapistmagazine.co...
When a sequel is made absolutely terrible by awful writing, they don't go "Maybe we carried this series on too long, and shouldn't write without respect to the quality of the underlying plot, counting on the name to do everything"
Instead they go "Welp, we drove off all the people that liked the series and another sequel will have a smaller audience. Solution? REEBOOOOOT with more bad writing!"
Comics are a uniquely suited format for adaptation to film, because they have the same (lack) of depth of characters, plot length, complexity, ratio of action to dialog, and flashiness as your typical action movie. So... that's just too easy a train to ride. We'll find a new gimick within another 10 years.
Agreed.
Reboot. Remake. Redesign. Reimagining. *yawn*
Retarded.
I'm sick to death of the ridiculous "beefcake dressed as nerdy scientist wrings his hands while 110 lb woman dressed as dominatrix defeats six linebackers without messing up her hair" scenes coming out of Hollywood.
Um... okay. But what does that have to do with Spider Man? The earlier Spider Man movies weren't like that at all. On the contrary: those were fairly typical Damsel In Distress stuff.
Having said that: I agree that was a great scene. But one great scene does not make a movie.
Dude. Do not feed the trolls! ;)
'Spider-Man 3' (2007) tried to get with the times by giving Maguire a black suit (courtesy of an alien symbiote) and a little bit of an attitude, an effort that pretty much everybody seems to view as a failure.
No, Spider-Man 3 was a near-faithful movie version of the alien-suit saga, a pivotal point in Spider-Man's career where the suit was making Peter stronger and a better fighter, but also more callous and brutal. To say the black suit was the director's attempt at an edgy Spider-Man is like saying the death of the witch king in Return of the King was Peter Jackson's attempt at feminist ideology.
I'm just waiting for a studio to announce a remake of a movie that hasn't even been released yet, or a reboot of a franchise that isn't even finished yet. They've come close a few times.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
All these reboots and reboots of reboots are making me dizzy. Actually they've reached the point where I could care fucking less.
I feel like I'm back on Windows Vista or something!
I am the criticritic. It's what I do. No one gets a free pass!
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man,' which made its debut in 2002, proved (along with Brian Singer's 'X-Men,' released in 2000) that superhero movies could appeal to the mass market, provided they were done right.
Really? That was the movie that proved superhero movies could work?
*ahem* http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
C'moooon. I don't really think anyone's looking back on Spider-Man as a classic now, let alone in another 24 years' time.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
So where the hell is the Civil War arc? The boring old "let's fight the villain and save Earth" storyline is played out.
It's time for internal strife to rip apart our loved ones and reflect the EXACT sort of conflict going on in America right now. The two party system is tearing us apart and causing complete dysfunction. The storyline itself is just as hard hitting now as when it came out. Do we believe in individual freedom or do we clamp down on potential dangers.
And what do the good-guy super heroes do when they disagree with the other good-guy super heroes.
It's not a cheap thriller for kids. It's a mature topic. And beyond all reasonable hopes, I think the right people in Hollywood could actually pull it off.
And I think it's the next logical step. You've got the introduction. The typical story. The crossover. Now it's time to have some serious continuity. People are getting burned out by all these superhero movies. Time to mix it up.
Yes, it's exactly that.
A quick cash-grab to attract a few kids who don't know any better at the cost of diluting the franchise/brand/over-arcing story.
Seriously, the new Star Trek is a nice action flick, but it's a giant clusterfuck for people trying to make sense of the setting. You know, those fans who would one day grow up and actually produce new Star Trek material. The term "canon" is now contentious depending on what universe you're talking about. This exact sort of problem is why DC had a crisis on infinite Earths. Because it was all such a mess and none of it made sense.
Action flicks are fine. But you don't have to sacrifice the long-story to make a cheap shock for the short-story.
Umm, didn't Superman I from 1978 do that?
(Heck, you could probably make the argument that the Batman movie in the 1960s did too.)
Um... okay. But what does that have to do with Spider Man? The earlier Spider Man movies weren't like that at all. On the contrary: those were fairly typical Damsel In Distress stuff.
Having said that: I agree that was a great scene. But one great scene does not make a movie.
I disliked Toby Maguire immensely. Spider-Man is supposed to be an overconfident wisecracking smart ass with a dash of brilliant intellect. Toby Maguire is an emo crybaby, the sort of guy who would keep his girlfriend by telling her he was going to kill himself.
The scene where the little kid faces down the villain was also an awesome scene. Not as good as Gwen's death scene, but awesome.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
spoiler alert!
Correct. This review is terrible. The pretense of a professional critical voice, the authoritative tone, the complete lack of accuracy.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
I disliked Toby Maguire immensely. Spider-Man is supposed to be an overconfident wisecracking smart ass with a dash of brilliant intellect. Toby Maguire is an emo crybaby, the sort of guy who would keep his girlfriend by telling her he was going to kill himself.
You must not be as old as I am.
When I was a kid, Spider Man was notably different from most "superheroes", precisely because he was a real kid with social problems. Kids and teenagers could associate with him because his problems were like theirs.
Maybe it's different today.
Part of the "fun" of the comics is the serial-ness. Even picking up one in the middle of a longer story, they can be followed. The bad guys never die, they just get lost in a river or volcano, and come back later with some story of being saved by mutant porpuses or a rare gas pocket that blew him harmlessly out of danger.
The only exceptions to that are the ones that are reality-based (300) or time traveling (Terminator) to where you arne't allowed a reboot, or a reboot is one paradox away. At the end of every comic (or two if you get the ones that like the cliff hangers) the hero wins, and the villain is vanquished without death. How many times has the Joker escaped from Arkham?
Learn to love Alaska
Sorry, don't get the reference. Looks like Bo Selecta is a British sketch show. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo'_Selecta!)
Which are the "essential" skits to watch?
The reboot Star Trek movies, particularly the last one, are just plain baffling films. The quick cuts, the brainless dialog that serves no other purpose than to push the plot along, they rob the franchise of its soul. Watch the interactions between Kirk, Spock and Bones in ToS or the ToS films, and you have rather incredible chemistry (I'd argue that Star Trek would have died around 1967 if it hadn't been for Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley's onscreen chemistry). Now watch Pine, Quinto and Urban, and while they might do a reasonable facsimile of Kirk, Spock and Bones (Quinto, in particular, is pretty darned good), they just don't jell.
Even in ToS episodes and films that were pretty shaky affairs (cough.. Star Trek V cough...), you at least had the three stars' chemistry to rely on. Without that, you just have what feel like amateurishly written and filmed movies, with crap cinematography that actually makes the 1960s series seem like a high point of production values.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
'm just waiting for a studio to announce a remake of a movie that hasn't even been released yet, or a reboot of a franchise that isn't even finished yet.
That's already happened. See the _Fantastic Four_ movie. Not the one with Jessica Alba. The one from 1993?
Man, great comment. Why are you posting as Coward? Also, why is the community modding these comments down? I don't get it. It seems like everyone who has insight is getting labeled a troll on this topic. Sony? Are you here somehow? Um...I loved the Walkman.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
What is it with America and superheroes? I don't think any other nation has ever produced quite such a concept. I suppose the nearest thing in UK would be 'super detectives' like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Lord Peter Wimsey, who were intellectual and self-ironic. Or in Scandinavian tradition, the god Thor - who was rather short, red-haired, choleric and not a little stupid, unlike the American re-invention.
The American superheroes all seem to be overgrown teenagers with inflated egoes and shaped like body-builders. I wonder if that is because Americans are obscessed with youth - or perhaps fear of getting old?
Never underestimate the power of large quantities of fanboys with mod points.
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I agree. the one "difference" in the spider-man series (been reading it since ~1980) was the fact that he was a normal kid, still growing, still learning, still trying to figure out who he was as a person, while be thrust into these insane situations that only he could help with. With great power come great responsibility. And also dealing with the other side of the power "Power corrupts, and ultimate power corrupts ultimately." He was a hero of the people, for the people. What I loved about the 200x movies is they never forgot that. the messed up the timelines, but the "hero" and who he was was spot on. These new series are nothing but an anti-hero campaign designed make people feel not as bad about their own corrupt morals and values. Make them feel better about them selves. After all if a "Hero" can be corrupt, how can they not be, right!? No-one is perfect, but a hero(even a movie hero) should set an example to strive for.
I think it's good that Hollywood has given up on original content. Not only are adaptations easier and more profitable, most of the time they are far better than original Hollywood movies. Other media typically doesn't rely on famous actors or flashy special effects to impress, so they are necessarily more interesting in content.
And whereas movies used to be longer than TV shows which were primarily episodic, now TV (serious TV anyway) is mostly plotted with full-season arcs. With the modern trend of binge watching, where you queue up a whole season of a show on Netflix or your DVR, movies are pretty much the shortest and shallowest form of entertainment around.
I think reboots are for successive generations of moviegoers, moreso than for lifelong fans of a given franchise. If that were not true, the characters and plots would age and mature. (And by "generation," I just mean "people too young to see the previous iteration when it was new", not necessarily the children of the people who watched it new).
Thing is that there's no reason to do a reboot. The people already know the character. They don't need another origin story. They don't need to have things rehashed any more than they need to have things based on previous movies. Just do a new movie with a new take on the character already if you want. The only reason to do a reboot where they retell or change the origin story is for somebody to piss all over it and call it theirs. Probably because they can't otherwise come up with a memorable script otherwise.
As opposed to, say, the $400 million brought in by Tim Burton's original Batman?
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Truth. Fanboy balkanization. I thought this place was for nerds, but apparently we're outnumbered by dorks, and they're going to mod us down until we're invisible.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.