Review 1
Being not a fan of the spiderman
movies - for me aimed at at kids
and teenagers of which i am
not - I found this movie to be a bit of an unexpected treat.
Viewed it last night at a 3d preview in edinburgh and what i worried might be a bum numbing 2 and a half hours actually flew by.
Don't want to give any spoilers or ruin any story but the whole pace of this film is much tighter than previous efforts and the tone can be quite dark at times. There is of course love interest but this added to the story and I actually bought into it and found myself caring for the characters, no mean feat for a cynic like me. Thankfully it didn't come across all teen/twilighty which seems to be the norm these days.
The villains are very good, Dane DeHaan in particular is exceptional (is it me or does he remind you of a young Leo di Caprio?) and gives a fantastically unnerving performance - big things beckon for him no mistake.
If you liked the previous Spiderman movies you'll still love this, If you didn't put any misgivings aside and give it a whirl (as i did). Either way definitely go and see this film, words I never thought I'd utter about a Spiderman movie. You Won't be disappointed.
As I said - no plot details and no spoilers, just an honest opinion of my film experience.
Viewed it last night at a 3d preview in edinburgh and what i worried might be a bum numbing 2 and a half hours actually flew by.
Don't want to give any spoilers or ruin any story but the whole pace of this film is much tighter than previous efforts and the tone can be quite dark at times. There is of course love interest but this added to the story and I actually bought into it and found myself caring for the characters, no mean feat for a cynic like me. Thankfully it didn't come across all teen/twilighty which seems to be the norm these days.
The villains are very good, Dane DeHaan in particular is exceptional (is it me or does he remind you of a young Leo di Caprio?) and gives a fantastically unnerving performance - big things beckon for him no mistake.
If you liked the previous Spiderman movies you'll still love this, If you didn't put any misgivings aside and give it a whirl (as i did). Either way definitely go and see this film, words I never thought I'd utter about a Spiderman movie. You Won't be disappointed.
As I said - no plot details and no spoilers, just an honest opinion of my film experience.
From IMDB
Review 2
I felt something was off from the moment I laid
eyes on the first trailer for this movie.
And here's the gist of it: Whatever bad impressions you got from the movie based on the promotional material, I'm sad to say that all the negative impressions came true in this 2 hour action flick.
What's wrong with it? Plenty. TAS tried to imitate The Dark Knight and it did OK. This one, however tries to take the same approach: One main antagonist that spawns another major antagonist, but everything here reeks of Spiderman 3.
But these villains are simply all setup with next to no payoff. Jaime Foxx's character is billed as one of the central antagonists, but really nothing more than a hired muscle with a motivation that would make even Joel Schumacher cringe. He also wears an outfit that feels like a rejected Fantastic Four costume. Harry Obsborn at the beginning has some promise but ultimately he's barely a presence in the movie. He's Two-Face, if he were written by The Farelly Brothers instead of Jonathan Nolan.
Oh and that amazing revelation 'bout Peter's parents and their tragic "accident"? All this setup (with a fairly impressive opening scene) for a 3-minute grainy Youtube video in which Pete's Dad gives us some exposition that can summed up in "Oscorp is evil". Thank you, I wasn't aware of that.
Romance is still awkward, the actress who plays Aunt May seems to have forgotten how to act.
You can argue that TAS did too much in trying to expand upon Peter Parker's life, Ben's death and the hunt for said killer and all that. But the sequel on the other hand seems to think that "less is more", when really it feels like "stuff just happens".
Since when did Spidey develop Jedi-like evil sensing powers? Why does Pete only see Captain Stacey when the plot demands it? Why are the police and firefighters more than willing to let Spidey call the shots since he is still technically a vigilante? Was Gwen fired from Oscorp? And if not, did they pretend she didn't exist after she walked out of the building? They were keeping tabs on Harry hanging out with Peter and the electric guy that nobody gave a flying hoot about and nothing was done to the one random employee that happened to search for Max Dillon's name? Oh and Harry doesn't get killed yet because he knows his way out? How does that work? Is Peter in colleague yet? 'Cause it's a little hard to tell, since he's either fighting crime or making a meager wage sending photos to the Daily Buggle. How come a genius like Peter doesn't know 8th grade science? How does a damaged web shooter work to magically save a whole lot of people from being shocked? Who is Mr. Friers? And does Harry get back to normal?
And here's the gist of it: Whatever bad impressions you got from the movie based on the promotional material, I'm sad to say that all the negative impressions came true in this 2 hour action flick.
What's wrong with it? Plenty. TAS tried to imitate The Dark Knight and it did OK. This one, however tries to take the same approach: One main antagonist that spawns another major antagonist, but everything here reeks of Spiderman 3.
But these villains are simply all setup with next to no payoff. Jaime Foxx's character is billed as one of the central antagonists, but really nothing more than a hired muscle with a motivation that would make even Joel Schumacher cringe. He also wears an outfit that feels like a rejected Fantastic Four costume. Harry Obsborn at the beginning has some promise but ultimately he's barely a presence in the movie. He's Two-Face, if he were written by The Farelly Brothers instead of Jonathan Nolan.
Oh and that amazing revelation 'bout Peter's parents and their tragic "accident"? All this setup (with a fairly impressive opening scene) for a 3-minute grainy Youtube video in which Pete's Dad gives us some exposition that can summed up in "Oscorp is evil". Thank you, I wasn't aware of that.
Romance is still awkward, the actress who plays Aunt May seems to have forgotten how to act.
You can argue that TAS did too much in trying to expand upon Peter Parker's life, Ben's death and the hunt for said killer and all that. But the sequel on the other hand seems to think that "less is more", when really it feels like "stuff just happens".
Since when did Spidey develop Jedi-like evil sensing powers? Why does Pete only see Captain Stacey when the plot demands it? Why are the police and firefighters more than willing to let Spidey call the shots since he is still technically a vigilante? Was Gwen fired from Oscorp? And if not, did they pretend she didn't exist after she walked out of the building? They were keeping tabs on Harry hanging out with Peter and the electric guy that nobody gave a flying hoot about and nothing was done to the one random employee that happened to search for Max Dillon's name? Oh and Harry doesn't get killed yet because he knows his way out? How does that work? Is Peter in colleague yet? 'Cause it's a little hard to tell, since he's either fighting crime or making a meager wage sending photos to the Daily Buggle. How come a genius like Peter doesn't know 8th grade science? How does a damaged web shooter work to magically save a whole lot of people from being shocked? Who is Mr. Friers? And does Harry get back to normal?
From Imdb
Review 3
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the
unwarranted and unnecessary sequel to 2012's equally unnecessary and
unwarranted The Amazing Spider-Man. It almost goes without saying that this is
a staggeringly transparent cash- grab on the part of Sony and to a lesser extent
Marvel, but the question is, is it worth your time and money?
The short answer is, absolutely not. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 evokes unavoidable comparisons to the masterstroke of the 2002-2007 trilogy, Spiderman 2, which was unquestionably superior in literally every conceivable fashion. As a matter-of-fact, you'll often wish – during TASM2's 140 minute runtime – that you're watching Spiderman 2. But how can that be? As Buzzfeed like to remind us, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are delightful; Dane De Haan is a promising young actor with a striking resemblance to a young Leonardo Di Caprio and Jamie Foxx is an experienced actor playing a potentially strong villain. Behind the camera, director Marc Webb impressed everybody with (500) Days of Summer and a string of well-known music videos, so what could go wrong? The answer, as is often the case in failed blockbusters, is lazy, shitty writing. It will be of no surprise to anyone that screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have each had a hand in at least one Transformers movie. But I digress.
TASM2, much like its predecessor, tediously and uncharismatically explores the mystery of what happened to Peter's parents, while Peter himself unconvincingly gets adjusted to his new life as Spiderman. Typically, there is also an antagonist who pops out of the woodwork courtesy of Oscorp (which surely by now should've faced at least some legal scrutiny for becoming a world-leader in the manufacture of supervillains), and Harry Osborn also appears as the harbinger of an inevitable Green Goblin return. This much has surely been made obvious by the trailer.
While this movie has some legitimately impressive action set-pieces, it succeeds only in turning a respectable group of lead actors into scenery-chewing, Saturday-morning-cartoon caricatures. During the film's non-action scenes, the leads unforgivably adopt ham-fisted pseudo- representations of their real-life personalities - I'm referring in mainly to Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone here. It becomes insipidly clear as the film goes on that their off-screen personality as a "cute celebrity couple" has been allowed to directly influence the writing. Often it feels as if they've just been thrown into a scene and told to improvise, and riff off of their natural chemistry. This is cute to watch, but when you suddenly remember that the last scene finished with an argument (or even an official break up at one point) it does make you question how well the writers knew their own screenplay. They chuckle and fawn giddily over each other, in spite of the fact that the narrative demands that they behave otherwise – like real human people would.
Poorly written scenes are not in short supply, and they encapsulate the knuckle-bitingly poor dialogue that mutilates this movie from beginning to end. The dialogue in the original trilogy was far from Shakespeare, but it was firm, utilitarian dialogue that moved the plot along. Here, everything is awkward and confused. It also through this poor scripting and story-telling that it becomes unescapable to realise Peter is in fact, quite obnoxious and douchey in this incarnation of Spiderman. Look at the plot from the villains' point of view as the film goes along, and you'll see what I mean.
Ultimately, TASM2 just left me feeling quite sad. The writers' tendency to open up plot holes the size of craters, and the bizarre shift toward Adam West Batman-style "campy" villains just made everyone seem like a dick who wasn't worth rooting for. By rebooting the Spiderman franchise this early – and getting a great cast to boot – Sony have made the unspoken promise that they've corrected the mistakes that the original trilogy made, and even improved upon its positives. However, they have achieved neither. This series has thus far done everything that the original series did, but slightly worse. Anything new it's tried to do, it has done poorly, and frankly I feel like a sucker for going to see it.
The short answer is, absolutely not. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 evokes unavoidable comparisons to the masterstroke of the 2002-2007 trilogy, Spiderman 2, which was unquestionably superior in literally every conceivable fashion. As a matter-of-fact, you'll often wish – during TASM2's 140 minute runtime – that you're watching Spiderman 2. But how can that be? As Buzzfeed like to remind us, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are delightful; Dane De Haan is a promising young actor with a striking resemblance to a young Leonardo Di Caprio and Jamie Foxx is an experienced actor playing a potentially strong villain. Behind the camera, director Marc Webb impressed everybody with (500) Days of Summer and a string of well-known music videos, so what could go wrong? The answer, as is often the case in failed blockbusters, is lazy, shitty writing. It will be of no surprise to anyone that screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have each had a hand in at least one Transformers movie. But I digress.
TASM2, much like its predecessor, tediously and uncharismatically explores the mystery of what happened to Peter's parents, while Peter himself unconvincingly gets adjusted to his new life as Spiderman. Typically, there is also an antagonist who pops out of the woodwork courtesy of Oscorp (which surely by now should've faced at least some legal scrutiny for becoming a world-leader in the manufacture of supervillains), and Harry Osborn also appears as the harbinger of an inevitable Green Goblin return. This much has surely been made obvious by the trailer.
While this movie has some legitimately impressive action set-pieces, it succeeds only in turning a respectable group of lead actors into scenery-chewing, Saturday-morning-cartoon caricatures. During the film's non-action scenes, the leads unforgivably adopt ham-fisted pseudo- representations of their real-life personalities - I'm referring in mainly to Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone here. It becomes insipidly clear as the film goes on that their off-screen personality as a "cute celebrity couple" has been allowed to directly influence the writing. Often it feels as if they've just been thrown into a scene and told to improvise, and riff off of their natural chemistry. This is cute to watch, but when you suddenly remember that the last scene finished with an argument (or even an official break up at one point) it does make you question how well the writers knew their own screenplay. They chuckle and fawn giddily over each other, in spite of the fact that the narrative demands that they behave otherwise – like real human people would.
Poorly written scenes are not in short supply, and they encapsulate the knuckle-bitingly poor dialogue that mutilates this movie from beginning to end. The dialogue in the original trilogy was far from Shakespeare, but it was firm, utilitarian dialogue that moved the plot along. Here, everything is awkward and confused. It also through this poor scripting and story-telling that it becomes unescapable to realise Peter is in fact, quite obnoxious and douchey in this incarnation of Spiderman. Look at the plot from the villains' point of view as the film goes along, and you'll see what I mean.
Ultimately, TASM2 just left me feeling quite sad. The writers' tendency to open up plot holes the size of craters, and the bizarre shift toward Adam West Batman-style "campy" villains just made everyone seem like a dick who wasn't worth rooting for. By rebooting the Spiderman franchise this early – and getting a great cast to boot – Sony have made the unspoken promise that they've corrected the mistakes that the original trilogy made, and even improved upon its positives. However, they have achieved neither. This series has thus far done everything that the original series did, but slightly worse. Anything new it's tried to do, it has done poorly, and frankly I feel like a sucker for going to see it.
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