Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Being a kid born in 1990, I grew up watching the Spider Man cartoon, read the comics and watched the original trilogy that brought Spider Man to the big screen. So it is by no surprised that I went to see The Amazing

Spider-Man 2 yesterday, the sequel to the 2012 film. Even though I knew what was going to happen, the film still had many great surprises.

The sequel shows the continued adventures of Peter Parker as the web slinging Spider Man (Andrew Garfield) and how the events from the previous film are still impacting him even now.

The movie starts off with unanswered question from the last film: how did the plane Peter Parker’s parents were on crash?  Richard and Mary Parker (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz) are on a private plane discussing their plans for their future in hiding, and how it was best to leave little Peter behind.  As Richard is uploading a file to ‘Roosevelt,’ the co-pilot emerges from the cockpit to wash his hands which are covered in blood.

A fight breaks out between the Parkers and the assassin as he tries to prevent the upload.  He shoots Mary in the process. Richard is able to defeat him and finish the upload and is able to save Mary from her wound and the plane crashes killing all on board. We are now fast forward to the present where Spider Man is is attempting to apprehend a Russian thief, Aleksei Sytsevich (Paul Giamantti) who is trying to steal plutonium. During this fight he saves the life of Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) who seems to be over the hill with joy to saved by Spider Man.

During this battle, his high school graduation his happening, his Aunt May (Sally Field) is looking for him and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), his girlfriend, is giving the valedictorian speech. Her speech is all about life and how we all must die. Spider Man manages to stop Sytevich and make it to his graduation in time to get his diploma and kiss the girl. Even though Peter is in love with Gwen, he cannot get her father, the now deceased Captain Stacy (Denis Leary), whom he promised that he would stay away from Gwen.

This caused Peter to go through anguish and causes him to break up with Gwen, though they seem to not be able to stay broken up. We now go back to Dillon, whom Spider Man saved earlier, who is now obsessed with him, because Spider Man noticed and saved him when no one else seemed to do so. All around,  no one seems to care about Dillon or remember his name, which causes him to have to stay behind at work, Oscorp, and fix an electrical issue that involves radioactive eels.

An accident takes place and he is bitten by the eels, thus being transformed into Electro. During this time, Peter’s old friend, Harry Osborn (Dan DeHaan) returns to New York right before his father’s death, where he learns that the Osborn family has a horrible disease that will kill him in a horrid and slow way. This causes Harry to begin searching for a cure with everything his father left him, this begins an obsession with Spider Man, because he believes his blood is the cure. These events lead him to track down the same spider blood that gave Peter his powers, and he injects himself and becomes the villain, Goblin. These events cause fights to ensue between Spider Man and both villains and, of course, ending with Spider Man’s victory–but at a terrible cost. The film ends with a plan being hatched to bring out more villains against Spider Man, beginning with Sytevich becoming the villain Rhino and Spider Man going into a battle with him.

All and all I was very pleased with The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  The film made me laugh, cry and cringe. Garfield and Stone gave excellent heart-filled performances while Foxx scared me with his performance of a psycho- stalker character. The Goblin villain is well done and looks like a perfect resemblance of a mad man. The film does a great job of foreshadowing future events to come and how they can change Spider Man. The main issue I seem to find myself having with the film is Giamatti’s performance as a Russian criminal.

WARNING: From here on out this review will contain spoilers, if you just want to see the rating I give to the film, scroll all the way down.

Garfield and Stone give great performances as goofy kids in love. They have real chemistry and it shows on screen, and the banter between the two is hard for just any two people to create. These two actors bring the first love story of Stacy and Parker come to life and it is that goofy love we all once had.

Garfield’s performance is probably the best of the entire film. He has managed to lose almost all of his parental figures, and the pain is just radiating from him. When Garfield cries or goes through massive pain, you can just feel that it is real, Garfield makes Peter Parker’s tragic life real to the audience.

The villains of the film are well done psychopaths, beginning with Foxx. The film shows pre-Electord being an invisible man who is filled with anger for never being noticed. Before he becomes Electrod, music is playing that goes into the character’s psyche, almost as the voices in his head. This is shown right up to the moment he goes crazy and begins to want Spider Man dead. The movie does a good job showing Foxx as a stalker, a wall filled with Spider-Man pictures and the wanting to hurt anyone who bad mouths him. The film even goes into a realistic way a stalker goes form harmless to evil, Spider Man did not, at first remember Dillon and this causes him to believe SpiderMan is a glory hog because the attention is no longer on the now electrified villain. The transformation from invisible to explosive is incredible, and Foxx was the best man for the job.

The goblin character is perfect, not only does DeHaan portray Harry Osborn as a great rich and lonely kid, but as a real crazy villain. The character evolution is very similar to Foxx, he is a thrown away invisible kid, but needs the help of Spider-Man, when he is refused this he goes insane and finds a way to get to the spider blood that will potentially cure him, however it mutants his body and mind, and he becomes the psychotic villain Goblin. The performance was so realistic, it will give you nightmares, and DeHaan was the perfect casting choice, no one else could perform as a kid with so much rage like him.

The foreshadowing in the film is well done, the main events are shown engulfing Gwen Stacy. Parker is shown seeing visions of her father, who died in the last film and believed if Parker stayed close to her, she would be hurt by his enemies. Gwen’s valedictorian speech is the most critical foreshadow of the film.  She begins talking about life and how we all most live it, in a sense saying we all must die. The events that were shown to come when the Goblin discovers that Spider Man is Peter Parker, and grabs Gwen. To punish Peter for what he ’caused’ to happen to him, he throws Gwen down a clock tower. Spider Man is able to save her but the battle does not end there, Goblin keeps going after them and Peter is left holding Gwen by a Web while holding off the gears of the clock and Goblin. The web is finally cut and the tower begins to crumble, Peter is able to knock out Goblin and begins to jump to save Gwen, why this is happening the clock hands are beginning to spin like crazy, symbolizing massive time passing. Peter shoots his web down to save Gwen, but it catches her in the stomach, right before she hits the ground, causing her to slightly hit the cement. The force of her falling, with the web grabbing her, causes Gwen’s neck to break, and she is dead. The foreshadowing was seen through the end of the first film and the beginning of this one. The clues to her death were all around the film, and her fate was inevitable.

Throughout the film I only had one issue with it, and that was Giamatti’s performance as the Russian villain, Rhino. Giamatti is a well known actor, who typically excels in his performances. However, I just could not take him seriously has a Russian villain, his lines  just seemed off, almost as if they were forced. His accent was alright, but it just did not seem like the roll fit him at all. With a film with actors who are rising above and bringing real life to these characters, he just fell short, very short.

All and all, I give The Amazing Spider-Man 2 an “A-.” This film is worth watching, especially in 3D. So go out and see The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  You will not regret it.