The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Noodles Review

6.5 out of 10 Noodles

    Our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man swings in to start off summer movie season for 2014. I was highly anticipating this film because I felt it could really bring us a great Spider-Man movie. It's predecessor rebooted the Spider-Man movie franchise, and I didn't love that movie. It did a good job of establishing Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man but it didn't fulfill on its promise to "bring answers to the mystery of Peter Parker's parents;" which was essentially the main reason to go and see the same origin story of the web-slinger again, even though the Sam Raimi version did a good enough job. So while that movie was underwhelming, I was very hopeful for this film. I really wanted this to be the definitive Spider-Man experience. Fortunately, and unfortunately, that is all it does. And by that I mean that you really get the sense that this is a Spider-Man movie. Say what you want about Andrew Garfield, but this movie has sold me that he IS Spider-Man. He's got the whole tone and comedic manner, yet serious and heroic nature, that Spidey should have, and that's where he beats Toby Maguire's version. He's also got a tall sleek figure, that really suits the hero more similarly to the comic book iterations. As Peter Parker, he's also good, I don't exactly buy that he's a dork because he seems like an attractive and cool guy, but I'm willing to suspend belief to a certain degree. Peter Parker's little jokes didn't always click with, I kinda felt like they were overdoing it. But when Spider-Man would joke around while fighting bad guys, I was laughing out loud sometimes.

     The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a funny and action-filled movie, but it's also serious sometimes. It focuses a lot on the romance between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. The chemistry of the two actors is tremendous (probably because they're a couple in real life) and you really get the vibe that they love each other. However, a lot of the teen touchy-feely moments felt like they were in the way. While I do feel that their back-and-forth seemed genuine and gave depth to their characters, it started to feel a bit repetitive for me. There was too much of their will-they-won't-they type thing going on, which I imagine Spider-Man would have a complicated love life; but I feel it really could've been condensed. Nonetheless, both of their acting is great, as is almost the whole cast. Jamie Foxx is great with what he's given, despite that his character seems a little too naive at first. When he becomes Electro, he looks and feels like a threat to Spidey, which is a great vibe to get from a villain. Also we have Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborne, which was one of the main reasons I had hope for this movie. He is really good in the role, giving at first a friendly feel to the character but becoming more and more chilling as the movie progressed. However, I feel that some aspects of his character were shoehorned into this movie. I think that the movie could've had just Harry or just Electro as the villain, because it the movie started to become tonally inconsistent and cluttered (although there is one great scene where Harry recruits Electro and then uses him as a personal bodyguard). Then there's also our third villain, which was too heavily marketed. Rhino is barely in this movie. He's basically one of those generic bad guys in the movie that Spider-Man catches in the first 10 minutes of the movies (like those random bank robbers, thieves, etc.). This movie was very mis-marketed. It gives too much away in the trailers. And the last shot of the entire movie is in every single trailer. Additionally, one thing that really pissed me off, was that the most exciting scene in the trailer wasn't even in the movie! That scene in the trailers where Harry tells Peter that Oscorp has him under surveillance, and then Peter asks why and he responds, "Isn't that the question of the day?" That's not at all in the movie, nor is anything related to that plotline.

    The villains in this movie were cool and underwhelming at the same time. Let's just scratch Rhino off that list already, because he's barely in this movie at all, despite having an accent that sounds like Gru from Despicable Me. Having Rhino on the poster for this movie would be like if you had Scarecrow on the poster for The Dark Knight. On to our other two villains, the setup for them were great. There was a lot of buildup, capitalized by great acting. You even felt sympathetic towards them. Electro's first scene in time square is fantastic. But the final battle's are underwhelming and end rather abruptly. This movie was showing that it had so many villains and I was hoping that it could handle that better than the abysmal Spider-Man 3; and while this is way better than that, it didn't do complete justice to that aspect. I feel like this film was trying to be too many things at once, and lacked a central focus. It was trying to tie together a summer blockbuster with a romantic comedy with a smart villainous plot with a mystery of Peter's parents with etc etc etc. So it just piles up to the point where the movie has no natural flow of events; instead feeling like just a string of entertaining events. But boy were they entertaining! The special effects were incredible and the actions scenes were greatly done. They also gave us a lot of Spidey's trademark poses with his webs. The whole Spider-Man saving the day aspect of this movie was fantastic. There are scenes that I absolutely loved (like a scene that really shows his spider senses and time stops so you can see what's about to happen), and there's even classic Spider-Man humour in there along with the action.

    You get a great Spider-Man vibe from this movie and I feel like there was I lot to love about this film. However, for almost everything that I loved, there could also be something that I disliked. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is undoubtedly a fun movie theatre experience and will entertain most. The action and witty jokes are great, and the actors are spectacular. There's also tons of little easter eggs for fans to find. But there's still some downfalls about this movie, with the main one being how sloppy and cluttered the films feels as a whole. The filmmakers were trying to fit too much into this movie, and it stripped the movie of its focus. In the end though, it was definitely better than the first movie, and a very fun Spider-Man movie, earning 6.5 out of 10 Noodles.