Director Marc Webb has the daunting task of upping one of the best produced, best written and emotive sequels of the comic-book hero genre Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2.
The question is: does he do a great job or is The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro an inferior spin-off from the original canon? Let's dig in ...
Off the bat there are some things that work nicely for Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro (ASTROE - what an acronym).
Jamie Foxx as the big bad Electro is not bad, although in the comic books and the cartoon shows Electro is a minor bad guy. Foxx gets to get in touch with his Steve Urkel (Family Matters) and Dr. Manhattan (Watchmen) in himself. Which is fantastic to see.
Dane DeHaan, who plays the new Osborne aka Green Goblin, has the right kind of mix between menace, sliminess and teen angst. I enjoyed every bit of him on screen.
Then, the action scenes look very cool. Marc Webb seems to have perfected his bullet-time techniques and images to give a good 3D feel - although I watched the film in 2D, which was a personal choice. Live action doesn't always do justice to the 3D ticket price yet some of the fights between Bugboy and Electro looked very decent.
Well I wish I could say the film is decent ... but, to be honest, the film is bloated. What works for it, also works against it.
Electro’s motivation for being the bad guy and causing load shedding that Eskom would be proud of is so teeny bopper, so emo that it’s laughable.
Having DeHaan and Foxx in the film and then a cameo appearance by Paul Giamatti as the Rhino does not help. The guys are cool characters but need screen time. You actually feel that if the bad guys had been sacrificed and there was only one of them, we would have had a better film - the sausage fest of bad guys does not help the story develop well.
The film is very comic-booky without any real world pathos or emotional engagement, which makes sense when you see who's behind the script. It's Orci and Kurtzman, the same guys who spoiled Star Trek and who wrote themselves into a corner with Lost, the TV show - the same guys that gave the world the crappiest ending to an iconic series.
This also goes for the relationship between Peter and Gwen whose romance is crammed with teen angst. One has to really hold oneself back from throwing stuff at the screen or booing at some of the story choices that are supposed to be drama.
It’s as if Orci and Kurtzman have watched too many rom-coms and decided that this is the route they should take for ASTROE. Although Emma Stone is a brilliant actress, the script and story lets her down.
Andrew Garfield has solidified himself as the emo-Spider-Man. I love the wise cracks and I love he gets to do more science stuff than Sam Raimi’s Spidey but his Spider-Man would have benefitted from more brutal cuts in script and streamlining. After the wise cracks are done and over, the film is as empty as the processed sugars we eat.
If you think of the iconic Spider-Man 2, ASTROE does not scratch the epic-ness of it in story, motivation nor gravitas. The only thing it kinda matches is the grand scale of the battles that actually top what we’ve seen in all the other Spider-Man movies - but that’s it. Ask Michael Bay: cool battles do not make a great movie.
This could have been a classic movie but it’s bloated, too indulgent, too condescending and too caught up in setting up its own universe and spin-off to really give us a meaty, streamlined story which is a pity. ASTROE does not make the cut, unless you're under 13 and this is your first ever comic book movie.
Rating **1/2
*junk **almost bearable ***now we cooking ****almost perfect *****classic ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++