Eastern Carolina Style

The X-Men franchise has turned into a cash cow for Fox with 6 movies already done and at least 3 more on the way. Disney is taking in cash by the dump truck load based off of the 8 or 9 movies that have been released in their Avengers based film franchise. They have 5 or 6 more in the pipeline to come!

With Disney and Fox bringing in BILLIONS off of their franchises you know Sony is going to do all that it can to cash in on the Marvel heroes they have the rights to. With their luck in being the owner to the film rights of one of the bestselling of all time, Spider-Man. How can they go wrong?

Let me tell you how they can go wrong. They can bring in a team led by Sami Rami to give life to the character over the course of 3 films in 5 years. They can let that team make BILLIONS (yes with a B) for the studio. They can ask the team to develop 3 more movies to continue the franchise. Then they can give the team the most unrealistic timetable possible. That deadline will send the team packing and forcing Sony to promptly reboot the series from scratch. Wait! What? Huh?

The first part of the reboot hit the big screen in 2012. The Amazing Spider-Man movie wasn’t a bad start despite only taking in about 60 million in its opening weekend. The new guy playing Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield, seemed like a good fit and the supporting cast seemed to be ripped right from the pages of the comics without any adulterations. Fans seemed to accept the new younger version of the wall crawler without much complaint or confusion.

Fast-forward two years and the next installment, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, is now ready for fans to enjoy and spend copious amounts of money on. The cast from the first movie has returned and a big name, Jamie Foxx, is brought in to be the main villain. All things considered, this movie should be as good as money in the bank.

Too bad it has so many issues. That money in the bank might end up being a series of small deposits that take years to get in. The movie has some very real problems that are going to be hard to overlook.

First, the story is too broad, maybe even to the point of being diluted. The cast of characters that appear in the movie feel crammed in and have too many sub-plots attached to them. It makes the story feel massive and unwieldy.

Peter Parker is actually the worst for having too many sub-plots to follow. He has to deal with girlfriend drama, daddy issues, buddy problems and saving the city from the crazy blue skinned guy that can shoot bolts of electricity from his hands. I think you could have done away with all of the love interest related build-up and been just fine in the end, all things considered.

Eventually, all the various sub-plots from the diverse cast of characters do come together and feed back into the main story. The story arc of the Sinister Six that is teased in the trailer is set in motion, Harry is fully into being the Green Goblin, also from the trailer, and the Peter-Gwen girlfriend issues are all cleaned up. Sadly, by the time all of the plotlines converge, the damage is already done. The sprawling story takes so much time to develop you find yourself to be the victim of fanny-fatigue from sitting in a theatre for two and a half hours.

Despite the weakness of the story itself, there are some very real positive to the movie that can’t be overlooked either.

Andrew Garfield is absolutely perfect for the wise-cracking super hero role. He has the right delivery and witty charisma to make even the staunchest of fanboys happy. His portrayal is good enough that it can effectively offset the awkward performance of Max Dillon/Electro by Jamie Foxx and the annoying Gwen Stacy from Emma Stone. If he could have put on just a little more muscle to better look the part, I would be able to say that he offset Dane DeHaan’s Harry Osborn performance too.

Another overwhelming positive is in the special effects. The effects designers’ attention to detail is very obvious right from the start. As Spider-Man dives from the height of a skyscraper at the onset of the movie you get to see the back of the suit actually flap and ripple in the wind as he falls. In Spider-Man incarnations past, that level of thought was just not applied.

The quality effects are not just limited to Spider-Man swinging around either. When the fight scenes between our hero and Electro occur, as well as the fight between Spidey and the Goblin, they are exactly what you would want them to look like. Another example of the exacting attention to detail is in the way the electrical current is seen flowing throw the small veins and arteries in Electro’s skin before he releases a bolt of lightning from his outstretched arms.

In the end, if you can accept that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a movie meant to bridge the chain of events that started two years ago with the storylines that are planned for the near future, you will probably enjoy this movie. If you are one that likes to really get into the story and pick apart the story and sniff out hints and clues of what is to come, you are in for a busy night trying to keep up with this story. Eat your Wheaties and bring an extra butt cushion, you will need it.