The Amazing Spider-Man 2
(2014)
(SPOILERS) I didn’t have a whole lot of hope for the
follow-up to Marc Webb’s 2012 Spidey reboot. The first one wasn’t actually
terrible, but it was definitely a mess that bore the scars of a traumatic birth
in the editing suite. It was also marred by only sporadically successful
stylistic choices and some truly rotten design work (chiefly the villain). Add
to that an unnecessary origin story with a botched “hero’s destiny” ladled on
top to attempt to make it distinctive and it’s a surprise it worked at all. But
The Amazing Spider-Man was blessed
with a couple of great leads in Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, and charisma
goes a long way. There was word that Sony and the makers were well aware they
had gone somewhat awry, and the sequel would pull out all the stops in an
attempt to course-correct. Yet the trailers failed to convince. Gaudy,
colourful and frenetic would be a nice way of putting it; a headache would be
another. The finished film suffers from many of the issues of its predecessor,
but also repairs a number. It’s biggest crime is overstuffing the cooking pot;
it’s greatest asset is that Webb and cinematographer David Mindel are having a
ball visualising Spidey’s world, at times out Raimi-ing Sam Raimi. Oh, and that
Andrew Garfield is an absolutely perfect incarnation of the wisecracking
webslinger persona. Seriously, it’s amazing that Maguire got away with slightly
shy goofball Parker for so long.
ASM2 will probably
be unfavourably compared to this summer’s superhero darling Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and
it’s certainly true this lacks the thematic depth that is Captain America’s greatest asset. But there’s a level of
swings-and-roundabouts for what works and what doesn’t in both; The Winter Soldier isn’t the unalloyed
perfection some have suggested. In terms of action, even though Webb rather
goes overboard during the climax, ASM2
is much more impressive than Soldier’s
sometimes in cohesive staging. There's the occasional dodgy moment, where his fondness for variable frame rates during the action results in a duff shot, but in the main his confidence is infectious. Both pictures suffer from not knowing when to
stop, a malady typical not just of the modern superhero movie but the modern
blockbuster generally.
Fatigue has set in by the time we reach the big fight
between Electro and Spidey, and there’s still the Green Goblin to come and the
all-too-quickly-gotten-over demise of Gwen Stacey (Stone). Passages where ripe
for expansion are skirted over (Harry Osborn being disinherited from Oscorp
momentarily puts us on his side, and it would have been much more effective if
everyone hadn’t been in a rush to turn him utterly evil). Spidey’s a homespun
character, not intended to philosophise deeply over the meaning of the world
and where the state of his country, so it doesn’t seem appropriate to complain
about a lack of subtext in ASM2.
Where he needs to deliver is in terms of heart and soul, and with Garfield in maximum
charisma mode the movie has something going for it that Captain Bland wholly lacks. If The
Winter Soldier is the more impressive movie overall, because ultimately
it’s innovation outweighs the de rigueur side of the Marvel plotting, Spidey succeeds
in its own way, despite suffering from déjà vu at crucial moments. It could have been a great movie if it just
knew when to stop; shorter, punchier, more emphatic. There are individual set
pieces here that are some of the best co-ordinated in the superhero genre thus
far. But the picture goes so far beyond the point where the audience is on side
that it’s easier to recall the water-treading fireworks of the last act rather
than the giddiness and deftness of touch of the first two.
The opening sequence finds Peter’s father (Scott Campbell) and
mother Mary (Embeth Daviditz) attempting to leave on a jet plane, not knowing
when they’ll be back again. After the tepid goings on of the first movie,
Oscorp shenanigans that only succeeded in mildly irritating and skewing the
notion that Peter is just and ordinary teenager blessed with a very special
power (which brings great responsibility etc), it feels like the makers have
grasped the mettle of his plot thread, for better or worse, and are running
with it. It’s an invigorating, exciting scene, even if is perhaps an overt call back to the demise of Kirk’s pappy in the
also Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci scripted Star Trek (also on the authorial credits are Jeff Pinker and James
Vanderbilt). So it’s a shame that nearly every subsequent return to the subject
of Peter Parker parents is hard work.
All those shots of dad’s briefcase, Peter
becoming obsessed with tracking down “Roosevelt”
and creating a sprawling map on his wall during an overnight montage (well it
seems like it), Aunt May (Sally Field giving it prestige value but little else)
having to be told Peter isn’t rejecting her. Most awesomely stupid (The Awesomely Stupid Spider-Man?) is
Peter’s eventual discovery of the truth of Roosevelt. He enters a disused
subway station, puts some coins in the slot and a whole carriage ascends from
beneath the tracks. I mean, what? Apart from being a really dumb attempt at a
“Let’s do an impressive Bat Cave thing”, when did Pere Parker find time for
this? How did no one notice? Why did he do it? And the whole effort (on the plane) to download what is
revealed as a tape message seems like a terrible bother when he might have just
placed same explanation in a safety deposit box.
I wasn’t especially taken with the idea that the spider serum
has the effect it does on Peter because dad incorporated his own DNA into the
initial experiments. Besides the (almost) complete lack of random chance in
attaining the super power, it provides a neat cop-out justification for him not
helping Harry. But the use of Norman (Chris Cooper) and Harry Osborne (Dan
DeHaan) wins points for beating out a different path, at least initially.
Norman is dying, then dead (although we never see a corpse), from a genetic condition that renders him with a
scaly green tinge and great gnarled (green) talons. Don’t forget, kids, if
you’re deformed you’re also evil. Even if you didn’t start that way, being
disfigured will inevitably turn you to the dark side, even over the course of a
couple of hours. Norman never becomes the Green Goblin, but since Harry also
has the condition it’s only a matter of time before he uses Oscorp facilities
to search for a cure. One has to wonder why, given all the resources at his
disposal, Norman didn’t take a similar chance to junior, particularly given the
remarkable healing abilities of the survival suit. Why didn’t Norman just get
in the damn thing, since Harry appears to be on the verge of death when he dons
it?
The scenes of Harry taking control of Oscorp, favouring
Felicity Hardy (Felicity Jones, who will no doubt be doubling up as the Black
Cat next time out), and then encountering a coup at the instigation of a
deliciously rotten Colm Feore are some of the strongest in the movie. As with
the picture generally, the need to accelerate Harry’s decrepitude means there’s
no chance to savour this. No sooner has he been deposed than he is releasing
Electro, and no sooner has he suffered the adverse effects of the spider formula
than he is reborn as an insanely hell-bent Goblin. DeHaan’s a great actor, but
the quartet of writers needed to spend more time giving him a truly memorable
character; someone you enjoy watching as much as Garfield’s Parker but for
opposite reasons. It goes without saying that DeHaan wipes the floor with the
Grand High Franco incarnation of Harry from the Raimi trilogy, but if he’s to
be the Sinister Six mastermind he needs beefing up as an antagonistic force.
Of course, it’s Electro on main villain duties and I’m not
sure if it’s a complement or not to say that Jamie Foxx’s character is more
interesting as the villain than in the persona of uber-nerd Max Dillon. Transforming
Max via an encounter with a tank of electric eels isn’t even a stupid idea the
writers came up with (it comes from one of the cartoons). Somehow that’s even
worse, since you cant even take the credit of having brains enough to use the
good ones. Dillon’s dribbling inferiority complex and worship of Spider-Man is
arguably over-played (inspired by Jerry Lewis’ Nutty Professor?), but at the same time I enjoyed the willingness
to go OTT and, well, cartoonish with the character. Particularly appealing is
Hans Zimmer (in general this is one of his good scores, even if the main Spider-Man theme sounds uncomfortably
similar to the one for ‘70s TV show Superstars)
cutting loose and embracing the whacky for Max and the kinetic electric for
Electro; indeed, his scoring of the initial set piece between Spidey and
Electro is a perfect complement. This is the sound of a composer having fun,
something I’d more associate with Jerry Goldsmith or (once upon a time) Danny
Elfman.
The problem is Max’s character is never quite there, never
feels sufficiently distinctive with his one-note obsession with whether anyone
remembers him or not. That could
work, but perhaps needed someone to go even broader than Foxx manages. As
Electro, his powers take on a Sandman ability to dissolve and reform; in terms
of superpower if not personality (he quickly becomes second fiddle to Harry
Osborne) he’s impressively positioned and rendered, even if floating about in a
hoodie was obviously something that should have been nixed at the first
production meeting. That said, the suit isn’t much improvement. For some reason
Sony have completely ballsed up the villain designs in this iteration. Raimi
stumbled with the Goblin, but got Octopus and Sandman just right. Curt Connors
was a travesty, removing all the personality from the lizard design and even
relieving him of his trademark lab coat. Whether or not Electro’s particularly
whacky lightning bolt mask could have been transferred effectively to live
action I don’t know, but what they do
come up with is wholly lacking. It looks
like a X-Men cast-off. That said, I
was surprised Electro works as well as he does, because the advance materials suggested
he’d be as middling as the Lizard.
Perhaps less is more, since the best villains in the ASM2 are little more than cameos. It
might have been better to have locked up Electro and left him there for The
Sinister Six, particularly since the focus shifts to Harry (again, during the
first two acts, Webb juggles the parallel plotlines with some skill; it makes
it all the more disappointing that the movie lurches off the rails). Paul Giamatti,
a barbed wire tattoo across his forehead and voicing an irresistibly
uproarious, upbeat, Russian accent is a delight as Aleksei Sytsevich. This
Rhino has no super strength, but he sports a super suit, in which he rampages come
the climax (the mech over mutation choice recalls Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin
in the first Raimi film). The rhino bookend is, on paper, a nice touch, and the
Spidey versus an exasperated villain aspect, besting him at every stage, has
never worked better than during their first encounter.
The final scene, where a
bespectacled kid in a Spider-Man costume steps up to the plate, is the kind of
sick-making “good New Yawkers get behind their hero” thing we saw in Spider-Man 2 (10 years ago, is it really
so long?) It’s in keeping with a series that has very much stayed true to the
idea of a hero who protects the innocent; there are numerous scenes in this
movie where Webb’s superbly envisaged predictive spider-sense (like Downey Jr’s
Sherlock Holmes but even more hyperbolic, if that’s possible) is used to save
the lives of one or more bystanders. With all the criticism of the
ultra-carnage of Man of Steel last
year, no one will be able to level a similar accusation here. But with the kid
thing, it really doesn’t need rubbing in that Spidey is a hero. It’s never a
good idea to cut to crowds cheering a hero on; that’s what the movie audience
is for. The good side is Garfield’s self-effacing bravado drags us unscathed to
the end credits, but it really didn’t need to be there.
The other great pleasure here is one of which I had no
foreknowledge; Marton Csokas as the outrageously named and similarly
outrageously accented Dr Kafka. If the spirit of Sam Raimi lives on in these
movies it’s with Dr Kafka, but even Raimi never went this far into a broad comedy performance. The Doctor also derives
from the comics, presiding over the Ravencroft Institute, albeit with a change
of gender (Csokas was also in Noah,
which I saw last week, but I can’t say he left an impression there). It
probably says a lot that in a scene where Kafka is poking and prodding Electro,
off the leash as a ghoulish parody-version of Dr Freud, you want to see more of
him rather than his patient. He’s on the receiving end of an Electro lightning
bolt, but I hope that doesn’t prove to be Kafka’s final end in this trilogy/quadrilogy.
If it does, Csokas can sits comfortably in the knowledge he stole his scenes
absolutely.
The Amazing Spider-Man
2 isn’t as satisfying as any of the Raimi movies but, before you take that
as a decisive negative, I’m a bit of fan of the flawed third instalment. Sure
it doesn’t need Venom, but it gives us the wonderfully whacky emo Parker scene
(surely the strongest indicator of whether the viewer is on the wavelength of
its director). Where Webb’s take absolutely improves on Raimi’s is in the
personification of its title character. I didn’t read a great many Marvel
comics as a kid, but even I knew Spidey had a one-liner or quip for every
occasion. Despite the portentous air of predestination the writers choose to
bog Peter down with, this Spider-Man
brings back the fun of the character. He’s not only witty verbally, but is
quick with the sight gag, and this extends to the humorous staging of scenes.
The side effect is it’s not always possible to juggle an essentially
light-hearted character with the doom-laden backstory and sudden heartbreak
this movie also fosters. It leaves it looking cynical and calculated in the
final analysis (which, of course, it is; Sony wants to pump its slender
franchise to the max). But there’s some great material in here; the whole of
Spidey’s back-and-forth with Aleksei, the “Lick
my hand” before flattening Max’s slap-down hair, sporting a fireman’s
helmet while hosing down Electro, allowing Gwen to escape Oscorp through some
expertly judged clumsiness as Peter entangles himself with security. There are
times, such as when Peter is comforting his aunt, when you wonder if Garfield
might be too accomplished an actor
for this part, but there’s no doubting he absolutely has the comic chops. Full
marks too for limiting the mask-less Spidey screen time in this movie. That
hang-up of needing to see the actor’s face (to justify the fee?) has been
evident ever since Batman Returns,
but ASM2 only goes there when it is
absolutely on-point; the death of Gwen Stacey.
While the editing of this sequence is about as perfect as
you could hope for, by this point the barrage of effects and fights has been so
relentless there’s no chance to let the moment breath. There is some reasonable groundwork as a
foreshadowing to the tragedy. Perhaps answering critics who found Peter’s
betrayal of his promise to George Stacy (Dennis Leary) too much and utterly
lacking contrition or moral compass, he is haunted by a vision of Gwen’s dad,
leading to a break-up with her. This element is effective, even if you just
know something bad will happen when he finally allows Gwen to get involved.
Stone and Garfield make a great screen couple, full of zip and sparkle and
genuineness when they split then get back together. Their relationship was
easily the best part of the first movie, and it’s a compliment that it is only
one of a number of great elements here. That is, until her death.
Which ends up
just another part of the extended melee of the finale. An episode that had such
impact in its original form shouldn’t have been dealt with here with such
graceless urgency, particularly given how the zest between the screen Peter and
Gwen. There’s nothing wrong with the execution (so to speak; as per the comics,
it’s the fall/web-slinging halt of the fall that kills her) but it’s just one
of many targets the makers want to hit on their way to setting the scene for 3. Since they’re not ultimately the
focus of the movie, her demise inevitably gets short shrift. Peter experiences
a mourning montage, gets over Gwen and bounces back into action like nothing
ever happened. Spider-Man probably
isn’t the superhero movie you want to see end on a downer, but it could have
been handled better than this.
But hurry onto the next thing. The Amazing Spider-Man 3. Garfield ain’t getting any younger, you
know. And the villains will be? Goblin, Rhino, Lizard, Electro for starters. Dr
Fear is the mysterious man who visits Curt Connors at the end of the first
movie and Harry here, but I don’t know that he amounts to a super villain. Dr
Octopus? The Vulture? (We see a couple of suits.) Alistair Smythe (B.J. Novak),
who in the comics invents the Spider-Slayers? The Black Cat, before switching
sides? If the first half of AS2 is
the template, rather than the extended climax, Webb could be onto something
good, but the tendency for a grab bag of villains to devolve into a torrent of
special effects may prove irresistible.
The X-Men: Days of
Future Past mid-credits clip threw me for a moment, I have to admit. Not
because I thought for Sony and Fox might be intending to combine powers but
because I couldn’t conceive of a reason why one studio would promote a
competitor’s movie. Even the stated reason (Webb owed Fox a picture, so this
was gratis compensation) seems a bit weak. That scene, and the recent trailer,
looks quite decent, so perhaps both the tired franchise entries this summer
will have a bit of juice to them (whether the accusations against Days’ director impact its box office
remains to be seen).
The Amazing Spider-Man
2 suffers from many of the over-cooked formula problems as Spider-Man 3, but there’s too much to
enjoy in both entries to dismiss them out of hand. This wont be taking the
superhero movie of the summer crown from The
Winter Soldier (and even if it’s good, I cant see Days of Future Past being great), and that’s absolutely correct,
but it doesn’t deserve to become a kicking ball for the things it gets wrong. Maybe
Webb should have ended the picture when Gwen leaves for London. What’s worse?
No third act, or a third act so over-extended you lose touch with how great the
movie was prior to that point?
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