This time, we are back in New York City for more adventures with Peter Parker as Spider-Man.
For anyone that remembers my review of the first Amazing Spider-Man, I was mainly commenting on the pointlessness of re-booting the Spider-Man franchise so soon.
But due to Sony's contract, they had to make a new film within a certain time to keep the rights of the source material. With Spider-Man 4 being rejected, a reboot was the only other option. In business terms, it makes sense. But for film fans, it is just annoying and frustrating. As a film, I felt it was pretty solid and did what it was supposed to do.
With the Marvel film franchise starting to expand and the studio beginning to show their grand scheme that apparently is going possibly last for another 10 years approximately, The Amazing Spider-Man is already showing glimpses of some interesting sequels.
Back to the film, and frustration is an understatement.
It is difficult to know where to start. But I think I will describe my emotions during the film. We begin with a terrific opening scene and drew a few gasps from the audience around me which it deserved. After that, we get Spider-Man's first action set-piece and to call it pantomime and cringe-worthy would be quite generous. It does get better, but there are still moments of silliness which I think should not be in it. As soon as you get a good solid scene, it decides to make a disappointing one. If I made a graph of my general satisfaction during the film, it would be up and down more times than Tigger who has had too much sugar.
I think I will talk about the characters now. Firstly Andrew Garfield, and I continue to be unsure. There is a Spider-Man in him, but I still think a few more viewings of the animated series and comic books are in order. For Emma Stone, she does the eye-candy very well and continues to give us a personality in her character compared to the basic performance by Bryce Dallas Howard. But I will always forgive her for the amazing presence she gave in The Help. Sally Field does what she does best and we cannot complain.
As for the new arrivals, by far the stand-out was Dane DeHaan who was probably the only character that had a real on-screen presence. It is a great choice of casting for his character and I will be interested to see how he develops over the franchise. Jamie Foxx I felt needed more character development, but that is more to the fault of the director and producer. But for the time Foxx had, I think he did a solid job. Sadly there were a few Mr. Freeze style quotes which sadly put a dampener on his performance. One performance that was just awful was Paul Giamatti's. From the moment you see him on screen and when he says his first line, he would have been better suited in the pretty poor Spider-Man 3. Another awfully over-the-top character was one played by Marton Csokas. He did have that crazy comic book tone to it, but everything else did not and that is why he felt out of place.
One character played by Felicity Jones did not get a lot of air-time, but once you know who she is playing, you know she is important for the franchise. So I think this was just small intro to her and I would wait for the next installment to really see her spread her wings.
Outside of the performance, the other positives was the cinematography. It is very well shot both during the action scenes and landscape shots. The special effects are what you expect them to be these days. But the director seemed to like the slow-motion button as I felt there was a bit too many in my opinion. There was one point where there was so much slow-motion, I felt like Michael Bay suddenly took-over the controls.
Another good positive was the constant hints of where Marvel are going with this franchise. We saw shots of other possible characters coming to life and a few teasers even the most hardcore fans would not be able to work out.
Sadly, despite a lot of good points that were mentioned, the negatives were superior. One huge bad point was the overall tone. When that does not work, you instantly cannot get into it. Don't get me wrong, I saw some good parts, but also some frustrating, disappointment and just plain awful moments. I still prefer Maguire to Garfield and yet I think neither are the perfect choice. It is hard to criticise and find a solution, but I hope they had the right tone and I can get back to enjoying Spider-Man again.
I am hoping those hints during the film win me over in the end. Otherwise, this could be a disappointing franchise that had its moments, but just not enough to be good viewing.
Overall, I did feel like it was disappointing. But there is just about enough in there to make it ok viewing. But it could and definitely should have been better.
On a final note, with it being Marvel, there is a wait during the credits for extra scenes. As it not an Avengers related film, it will be just be mid-credits to watch out for. For me, it was better then the actual film. Not only does that say a lot about The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but for how excited I am for the next course on Marvel's menu for 2014.
Rating: 6/10
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