[Movies] I'm starting an Amazing Spider-Man 2 thread and no one can stop me

I can't wait for this to make $250 Million opening weekend and win every Oscar and have everyone crying and coming up to me and saying "you were right, it is the best and most important movie ever*"

*until Amazing Spider-Man 3 or Venom or Sinister Six or the Aunt May spinoff or whatever comes next

all joking aside I'm hype as hell and I'm treating myself to a nice dinner before getting in line to get the perfect IMAX 3D seat tonight
 
If I was a mod I'd so be trolling you by locking this thread after reading that title.

But seriously hope you enjoy the movie.
 
I hope you enjoy it, Charlie. I'll be interested to see your thoughts on it. Thanks for starting this thread, anyway. I was debating whether to start one or not tonight after I catch the movie at 7 PM.
 
Reading through some reviewer blurbs on Rotten Tomatoes, this seems like a maybe. If I don't see it in theaters it's a rental for sure.

On the other hand, I might just go see winter soldier. I still haven't watched that yet.
 
I'm not a fan of the first movie but this one is written by Orci and Kurtzman, so my imagining is the dialog will be like nails on a chalkboard for me and even if every other thing in the movie is done well, they'll manage to make it unwatchable.
 
Well, I just got back. While it is technically just a "meh" response from me, my total response is that I dislike this film. A lot of the writing (as mentioned, it was by Orci and Kurtzman) feels hackneyed and disjointed, with rough dialogue and plot threads and elements that sort of jump around or conflict. For example, though they give a presence to Felicia Hardy (who is serving as Harry Osborn's assistant), she just sort of disappears from the film. Similarly, they try to do with will-they-or-won't-they dynamic with Gwen and Peter of if they'll stay together or not, but their dialogue just doesn't do them any favors. Good thing Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have good chemistry, or this may have failed.

Regarding the villains, there is a range of quality. The one most suffering is Harry, who's just written as nasty right off the bat with very little real empathy. Sure, he's suffering from a genetic disease that Norman also has, but that is not enough. At least Electro has something of a good idea, if flawed in its execution. I like the concept of showing him as this guy who is a nobody who winds up getting incredible power, but then lashes out at a world that ends up seeing him as a monster. That could have been good, if it weren't for him pre-transformation being shown as overly nerdy and out there (like a stereotype of a nerd, with pants pulled a little high up, big glasses, and a terrible combover) and then post-transformation, he gets a little too quickly on the "A God Am I" train. Really the only one who I ended being okay with was Aleksei Sytsevich (better known as the Rhino). Though I'm not wild about the look of the Rhino armor, his appearance early on captures the basic core of him: barrel in, smash stuff up, then fight Spider-Man. Also, it at least looked like Paul Giamatti had a fun time hamming it up as a Russian mafia thug.

Now, here there be spoilers:
Among the many missteps in the writing, the worst to me is that I feel they took some of the edge out of Gwen Stacy's death. The original moment has so much power in it, because it seemed like Spider-Man had saved her, only to find that the rate of which his webbing became taut caused severe whiplash and broke her neck. Here, while we do see the webbing become taut fast and some whiplash, she also hits the hard ground of a clock tower at the same time. That takes some of the blame off Parker and robs the moment of its power.

Also, it still feels like they're rushing way too fast towards the Sinister Six. Although with Harry Osborn becoming the Green Goblin near the end of this film and the reveal of Gustav Fiers (from the Sinister Six novels) as the guy pulling the strings, they showcase numerous pieces of tech for the Six coming from OsCorp. In fact, it seems like all villains shall come from OsCorp, which considering that Sony's basically trying to make their own little Spider-Man movie universe, severely shrinks their universe and keeps it too small for what they want to do.

Now, I know I've had a lot of negative criticisms, but it was not all bad. As I mentioned before, I enjoyed Paul Giamatti's brief turn as Aleksei Sytsevich and the chemistry between Andrew and Emma still works. The opening chase sequence with Aleksei was good and the Times Square battle with Electro was really good (and also had character elements of Electro that I wish they did more with). Little moments like Peter Parker trying to change his webbing to deal with electricity were good, but they were just little moments among a lot of bad.

In short, though my technical response is "meh", I do not like what this film stands for. It stands for a severe misunderstanding of Spider-Man and just an attempt to milk a cash cow in a poor fashion. At least now I have a clear view of what's to come and that I won't spend my money on the next Spider-Man films and the spin-offs. I advise doing the same and staying away. Sorry for my rambling, but I just wanted to get my thoughts on it out of my system.
 
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I actually realized right after I posted it "shit, a mod could really easily stop me and it would be hilarious"
I thought the title was hilarious.

And while I will see this movie my expectations aren't high. Not because I think it will be bad, but because I just generally don't expect a ton from super hero flicks. The first was fine but not, ahem, "amazing".[DOUBLEPOST=1399038012,1399037891][/DOUBLEPOST]I agree with Nick, I'd like to see Charlies critical eye of Sauron turned towards this film with a serious review.
 
forgive me my "one minute after credits rolled youtube review/response". I have 1200 words here:

http://letterboxd.com/neoraven/film/the-amazing-spider-man-2/

Alright, I'll do a non-spoiler version, maybe a spoiler one later (maybe after I see it a second time???)-

Within 5 minutes of credits rolling, I was incredibly satisfied with this movie and I'll try to tell you why-

* Every scene with Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield plays like it's from a different, much better romantic comedy. This sounds like it's a criticism, but there are A LOT of scenes that are just Stone and Garfield being adorable and elevating the material.

* Dane DeHaan pretty much jumps off the screen. His performance is ELECTRIC (sorry Jaime Foxx ((more on him later)) ). I was often reminded of Jack Nicholson as The Joker with some of his facial expression and zeal playing him. Also, I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this but he also really reminds me of a young Leonardo DiCaprio. I saw shades of Jordan Belfort in his performance as malevolent rich-kid Harry Osborne. Last comparison, and the most-stretching one - he's the best comic book movie villain since Heath Ledger's Joker. This seems like a small compliment, but there have been a LOT of superhero movies since The Dark Knight.

* This movie gets the joy of webslinging. Not that previous movies made it look boring by any stretch! But it makes the genuine joy of flying through the air come across pretty well. Any complaints about "bad CGI" are people with an axe to grind, because I couldn't see anything wrong with the effects.

* Also - the joy of Spider-Man. Oh, this movie gives good quips. It seems juvenile on paper, but I loved him calling Electro "sparkles", and pretty much every light-hearted interaction with crooks in the movie.

* Body FUCKING horror. This movie rivals Sam Raimi's masterful Dr. Octopus origin scene with a couple good scenes showing just how horrific it is to be mutated and become some crazy fucked up radioactive supersoldier / force of electricity / whatever. While this isn't exactly David Cronenberg's Spider-Man (holy shit I would give anything to see THAT movie), I still really liked these couple parts.

* The criticisms of this movie cramming the whole Peter / Harry friendship and background into one movie are a little valid. However, I think the chemistry between DeHaan and Garfield largely was able to get around that. I got vibes of Garfield and Eisenberg's doomed friendship from The Social Network in a couple of their scenes together (Although the roles were slightly swapped... this is nice, poor guy and mean rich guy instead of nice rich guy and bitter poor guy... I digress). Now I won't give the script THAT much credit here at all, but it did a decent job of working his absence from the last movie into the motivation / plot of what's going down now.

* SCIENCE! I fucking love science, and I love when Spider-Man uses science. Spider-Man outsmarting villains is so much more satisfying than Superman just throwing someone through 70 buildings. It's a mild negative that this series slightly downplays the "Peter is a genius" thing, but there are some pretty decent moments in that regard here.

* ACTION! Slightly an offshoot of the "joy of webslinging" part above - the fight and flight scenes in here are really a step up above the last. Partly because Electro and Goblin are more interesting villains as far as powers and doing crazy shit to Spider-Man / around Spider-Man. The Times Square part is pretty visually stunning and all the hundreds of millions this movie cost were, at least, on the screen.

BUT NOW, in the cold light of morning, the euphoria is fading away, and I'll tell you why-

* Aunt May. God bless ya, Sally Field, but uh. You could have stayed on the bench for this one and no one would have noticed and the movie would have been better off for it I think. It's a shame, since I love Aunt May and her scenes with Peter in the previous trilogy are some of the best.

*THAT FIRST FUCKING 5 MINUTES. JESUS CHRIST. This is some of the goddamn stupidest shit filmed in Superhero movie history. And I watched all 97 minutes of Elektra. I'll get into it more spoiler-y later? But fuck, show up late.

* Yeah, everyone is right. The movie is overstuffed. There are way too many subplots going on. This is SLIGHTLY a positive, since at least this makes most scenes feel important. But again, keep it simple stupid.

* Let me tell you a story about American Psycho. During filming, Willem Dafoe as the antagonist detective did each scene three ways - that he was sure Bateman did it, that he had no clue, and that he wasn't sure - and the director used these different takes randomly to set up a sense of unease / weirdness. And it works. So that brings me to Electro. It felt like every other scene, Jaime Foxx played him differently. Maybe this is his fault, or Webb's fault, who knows. But some of the time he was a deadly serious Chris Nolan villain, then he'd be a goofy and silly type villain, and then... not nearly enough, but a little bit, he played him like an actual human being and the Oscar-winner's talent shined through. But there wasn't enough of that. Most all of Electro's scenes without Spider-Man present are a drag. Nothing really ever became clear about his motivations, plans, desires, really any of that. He wasn't a character, he was a glowing blue plot device.

* Who's Alistair Smythe? Who's Felicia Hardy? Why the fuck should I care?

* The editing is better than the first one, but it's still a little all over the place. There are some clever transitions and montages (thanks, Marc Webb!), but it's still a little scattershot. Also, this is a really dumb nit to pick, but whole scenes / sequences from the trailers weren't in the movie at all. It's not the film's fault that I'm expecting something from the dumb trailer. But some of those little parts felt like connective tissue that got cut.

* Not enough Rhino. I would have said this for anything short of "Spider-Man vs. Rhino", but it still stands.

* Chris Cooper is weirdly bad and utterly wasted as Norman Osbourne. I mean, the last thing this movie needs is more periphery scenes / characters. But bleh.

*Mid-credits sequence did nothing for me. And just as a public service announcement - there is nothing after the credits, unless my theater jobbed me.

* It felt like the script gave Peter Parker too many vast, huge emotional swings (pun intended) back and forth over everything. Garfield is a good actor, and handles it fine, but it probably would have had a little more heft with less extreme back and forth drama.

* Discussing this movie as setting up future movies / world-building is something I really don't want to do. But, it's kind of a necessity in this post-Avengers / MCU world. And I'm ever so slightly worried for Spider-Man's future. The set-up stuff for the Sinister Six tedious, too.

So, I guess wrapping up, 3.5 out of 5 stars. Better than good, less than great. I don't think I can really wholeheartedly recommend this if you're not that invested in Spider-Man. The Garfield/Stone chemistry is GREAT, and there's more scenes of them in this one. And the actiony sequences are prettier and more lively than the last one, but it's ironically not... to use a turn of phrase from the movie... blazing its own trail.
 
I thank you for coming back with your thoughts here, Charlie. I will say that, though I do fall on the more negative side of response to this film, I do agree with you on the plusses of the science and the quips. Despite my major gripes, I really appreciate this film and the last one high-lighting Peter Parker's intelligence in developing the web-shooters and figuring out ways to defeat his opponents, along with the fun nature of Spdier-Man and the quips that he delivers when taking on crooks and supervillains.
 
Great review.

I'm hearing some WILDLY different takes from folks on this, there doesn't seem to be much consensus around the comic world.
 

Dave

Staff member
I actually hated Harry Osborn. Not the character, the actor and the way they portrayed him. I mean, he had some good scenes but overall he was just "meh" to me.

Paul Giamatti as Rhino?!? Hell yes! Too bad we see him for a grand total of 30 seconds. (An exaggeration, but not by much.) TOTALLY wasted the talent of this guy in a shit part.

The Green Goblin fight was too short and too stupid. They spent the greatest part of the movie with Gwen & Peter looking lovingly into each other's eyes and Spidey saving nobodies to show how much of a hero he is. But since we knew that it was wasted time.

And when did Gwen Stacey get to be smarter than the genius Peter Parker?!? Basic science stuff Peter was all like, "Electricity? How the fuck does THAT work?" and Gwen was all, "You remember basic science, noob?" Bullshit.

I liked that they used Kevin Leary in the movie. Really brought out Spidey's dilemma.

I loved Jaime Foxx's Electro. As in LOVED it. His motivations seemed weak at first, but the overplay of the voices going through his head amplified the insanity we couldn't physically see. Gave his motivation weight.

Mid-credits scene was all about the X-Men. Big fucking deal. And no end of credits anything.


I would give this a 3 out of 5. Not a great movie, not entirely terrible, either.
 
Color me confused... isn't X-men a Fox property? I thought Sony only had Spider-Man.
Sony and Fox reached a deal in which they would cross promote each other superhero movie this year so they both can look like they are part of a bigger universe ala Marvel. As far as I've heard no one has claimed that this is anything more to this deal.
 
Sony and Fox reached a deal in which they would cross promote each other superhero movie this year so they both can look like they are part of a bigger universe ala Marvel. As far as I've heard no one has claimed that this is anything more to this deal.
Actually, the situation was that Fox wanted Marc Webb to direct a sequel to (500) Days of Summer, while Sony wanted him around to make more Spider-Man films. Fox relented, but only on the condition of giving them some free advertising for X-Men: Days of Future Past.
 
I was going to hold off on spoiler thoughts for a few days to give people a chance to see it, but I can't hold it in any longer. This is just a spoiler of the first 10 minutes or so:

JESUS FUCK WHO CARES ABOUT PETER'S DAD BEING JAMES BOND IN AN AIRPLANE AND THE MOST DURABLE LAPTOP EVER TO MAGICALLY INTERNET WIRE THE MACGUFFIN TO ALL THE STUPID FUCKING SECRET BULLSHIT MYSTERY THAT ~literally no human being on the face of god's green earth gives half a fuck about~

okay, whew, I feel a little better. I swear every time I see this movie in the future in the leisure of my home I'm going to mash fast forward until I see a goddamn spider-man logo so I don't burst a blood vessel in my brain
 
Sony and Fox reached a deal in which they would cross promote each other superhero movie this year so they both can look like they are part of a bigger universe ala Marvel. As far as I've heard no one has claimed that this is anything more to this deal.
 
* Let me tell you a story about American Psycho. During filming, Willem Dafoe as the antagonist detective did each scene three ways - that he was sure Bateman did it, that he had no clue, and that he wasn't sure - and the director used these different takes randomly to set up a sense of unease / weirdness. And it works. So that brings me to Electro. It felt like every other scene, Jaime Foxx played him differently. Maybe this is his fault, or Webb's fault, who knows. But some of the time he was a deadly serious Chris Nolan villain, then he'd be a goofy and silly type villain, and then... not nearly enough, but a little bit, he played him like an actual human being and the Oscar-winner's talent shined through. But there wasn't enough of that. Most all of Electro's scenes without Spider-Man present are a drag. Nothing really ever became clear about his motivations, plans, desires, really any of that. He wasn't a character, he was a glowing blue plot device.
This makes me wish SM3 was all about Sandman, because man Thomas Hayden Church made me want to like him, villain or no. I still think he was the best-played of the SM villains so far. And you want to talk about body horror, the scene where he gets his powers, man...
 
This makes me wish SM3 was all about Sandman, because man Thomas Hayden Church made me want to like him, villain or no. I still think he was the best-played of the SM villains so far. And you want to talk about body horror, the scene where he gets his powers, man...
Totally, it's probably the best scene in all the Spider-Man movies.
(Well, the scene where he reforms for the first time anyway)

 
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Fun fact: were it not for the execs forcing Venom in Spider-Man 3, Sandman and Vulture would have been the main villains.
I thought it was just going to be Sandman. The movie sans Venom makes so much more sense. I know Raimi intended Vulture for 4.
 
Fun fact: were it not for the execs forcing Venom in Spider-Man 3, Sandman and Vulture would have been the main villains.
Vulture was going to be for Spider-man 4. Raimi had been setting up Harry as Green Goblin for a while (and had to fuck it up because of the Venom plot) and wanted Sandman big-time.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Frank.
 
I thought it was just going to be Sandman. The movie sans Venom makes so much more sense. I know Raimi intended Vulture for 4.
Actually, he had originally intended Vulture for 3. The plan was for him to end up working with Sandman and he would have been played by Sir Ben Kingsley. Ultimately, Vulture ended up getting cut out of the script.
 
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Honestly, if you were to edit out anything to do with the symbiote suit and Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man 3 would have been a kind of great movie. Even then, if you were to get rid even the "emo Peter" scenes and kept Topher Grace's face covered when Venom, it would still have been decent.
 
I think there's a lot you'd need to edit to make Spider-man 3 great. The Sandman stuff was solid aside from the back-alley meeting with Venom.

Seeing that in theaters with my friends was one of those "we're having a good time, but this is not a good movie" evenings. We had a lot of laughs.
 
Well, except the part where he'd killed Ben Parker. That was stupid.
The retcon was clumsy, and then the retcon of the retcon near the end was even clumsier. But then we get the scene where Spider-man confronts him underground. It was one of the scenes out of a better movie.

That's really where Raimi was aiming for before the studio forced Venom and the symbiote suit on him. When it came to Uncle Ben, the suit wasn't necessary for Spider-man to go dark.
 
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