Introduction, and the Amazing Spiderman 2 Review

Welcome to my new blog! Here, you’ll find movie reviews for newer movies from various genres (along with a healthy dose of sarcasm—no, really, a lot of sarcasm).

For the longest time, I’ve wanted to write a blog like this, but I never had the time or the ambition to do it. I took several television and film classes in college which sparked my love for film; it was never just about watching movies, though, but rather writing, filming, and acting in movies. More than anything, I just like to have fun with movies, whether it’s watching them or making them, and this is the primary focus of this blog.

The movies I like watching are normally action-based, although I like to watch a broad smattering of things. When I say action-based movies, sometimes I truly mean dyed-in-the-wool actions flicks with Arnold Schwarzenegger lumbering around and not looking at the explosions he’s caused (you know, like action heroes do). Other times, action-based movies fall more into the sci-fi or fantasy realm, but a big portion of those action-based movies I like are superhero movies.

Now that I’ve set up the perfect segue into this first post, here’s my latest viewing!

The Amazing Spiderman 2

Director: Marc Webb (oh, the puns!)

Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti

The Amazing Spiderman 2 follows the story of Peter Parker, a teenage boy who was bitten by a genetically-modified spider, thus giving him arachnid-like superpowers. “Spiderman” is an apt description of a superhero with arachnid-like powers. In this sequel to The Amazing Spiderman, our friendly neighborhood webslinger faces off against baddies such as Electro and the Green Goblin, both products of the evil Oscorp company.

A more apt title might have been “Spider-boy,” since the story of The Amazing Spiderman 2 devolves into a structuralist superhero plot full of teenage angst—even among those characters who aren’t even teenagers. Peter and Gwen Stacey continue their romantic fling from the first movie, though Peter is now plagued by images of Gwen’s father, killed off by the Lizard in the climactic final battle. Peter has to make the cliché decision that Tobey Maguire faced in 2004’s Spiderman 2: do I live a normal life with normal relationships, or do I accept my responsibilities as the guy who was accidentally bitten by a super-spider? We see the same double-identity crisis in almost all superhero movie sequels, such as Batman wanting to hang up his cowl and be with Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight, so I found the structural plot of The Amazing Spiderman 2 to be a bit played out.

Another played-out theme in The Amazing Spiderman 2 was the real-world grittiness that Webb was trying to spin. (Get it? Webb? Spin? I’ll show myself out later.) Webb seems to be emulating Christopher Nolan here by trying to bring that same Batman grittiness to the Spiderman universe, like how the Rhino looks like an Ironman suit (you know, shaped like a rhino). The character Spiderman seems to be geared more so toward younger audience, which seems fitting, since Peter Parker graduates from high school in the first few minutes of the film, and that Batman-esque grit doesn’t seem to fit the light-hearted, quick-witted feel of Garfield’s Peter Parker.

By trying to establish that real-world grit like Nolan, the Electro character in The Amazing Spiderman 2 annoyed me—a lot. Max Dillon, played by Jamie Foxx in the film, starts out as your run-of-the-mill electrical engineer for Oscorp, and he is saved from death one day by Spiderman. Spiderman tells Dillon something to the effect of “I need you, buddy,” and Dillon becomes obsessed with Spiderman like a teenage girl with Bieber-fever. The film attempts to set up Dillon as mentally unstable, as he plays out violent scenarios in his head and apparently hears voices (which are portrayed during the soundtrack in a corny dubstep rap). The mental instability of Electro is pushed a little too far, though, because he seems more like an unruly teenager lighting fires (or electrocuting things) for attention from Spiderman. Where Nolan’s villains like the Joker or Bane actually made me uneasy because of their lack of humanity, Electro never seemed like that much of a threat in this movie because he didn’t want to hurt anyone—he just wanted to be noticed, like an emo kid that just needed a hug.

In all honesty, I really prefer Garfield’s portrayal of Spiderman as a sharp-tongued kid when compared to Maguire’s straight-laced, one-liner superhero. With Garfield’s excellent and fun portrayal of Spiderman, along with the awesome on-screen chemistry he has with Emma Stone, the protagonist side of The Amazing Spiderman 2 was right up my alley. That being said, the antagonists of the film—the attention-seeking Electro, the daddy-issues Green Goblin, and the tacked-on Rhino—didn’t hold up their end of the movie.

Thanks for reading!