by Joseph Rossi
After the wonderful Captain America sequel there should be no excuse to screw up a popular superhero movie anymore. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is not amazing. It is a bloated mess that numbs the brain with noise, CGI overuse and length.
I admit to have liked the first of this rebooted franchise. I never cared for Sam Ramii’s take on the character. I never believed Tobey MaGuire had the chops. When it was said that they were giving Spidey a makeover after Spider-Man 3, I groaned. Why? Why do we need another one? But once I heard about the casting of Andrew Garfield I calmed down. The new Peter Parker had that sulky teenage thing going on for him and I found that to be refreshing. Garfield plays Parker as an actual teen with issues and I loved it. The movie was just average. Good, not great.
The problem this time around is that director Mark Webb and the producers seem to be franchise building. Rather than looking at the film they are making at the moment, they are looking to the next chapter. And the next one after that. They throw everything including the kitchen sink in this one so that they can connect the dots later on.
You have three villains fighting for screen time. Jamie Foxx hams it up as Electro, a geek turned into a bad, power mad ball of electricity. The Green Goblin, AKA, Harry Osborne, Peter’s long-time friend played by Dane Dehaan. And then there is Paul Giamatti as the Rhino, who to me, is the dumbest villain in the history of comic books but has a place in this film for about 20 minutes. That’s 20 minutes that could’ve been used to shorten this horrid experience. Throw in Peter’s love interest Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone), Aunt May (Sally Field) and a whole slew of conspiracy subplots that are carried over from the first film and you got a lot of story that has nowhere to go. Too much story, no plot. All we have is a series of set pieces between long exposition scenes that add little to the enjoyment of the picture. There is so much useless dialogue in this film I wanted check my stub and make sure I was watching a comic book movie.
The technical aspects are sound. You want loud, you got loud. The effects are good but have that videogame look due to the overuse. The 3D is no big deal. Save money, watch the 2D version if you can. Or better still, skip it all together.
