Really underrated

Rating: Null/10 (3 May 2014)

I was very pleasantly surprised to see that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is good. The movie tried to be a romance comedy, a summer blockbuster, a drama and an action movie, and it all worked decently enough.
The acting in TASM2 is very good, Andrew Garfield, really that guy is great, he is the best Spider Man ever, he's got the sarcasm down, the comedy aspects, everything, and not only as Spidey, he's the best Peter Parker too, he really sells a 20 year old, not really in the looks, but in the way he talks, his mannerisms and all. Emma Stone is incredible as Gwen, I absolutely love that woman, she is so awesome! Not only as an actress, but she's super fun off-screen too! She is the best! Anyway, her acting here is incredible. These two on a screen, best couple in the world. Their chemistry is palpable, it is astounding how well they are together, their romance throughout the movie is really great, their high-school fling was incredibly sold. Dane DeHaan, another actor who gave an incredible performance, him and Garfield also have incredible chemistry, those scenes where Harry and Peter are talking as friends, they were greatly acted. DeHaan plays his role perfectly, at the start, when he's friends with Peter he does a good job, then when he finds out about his condition, he gives a surprisingly amazing performance. He is deeply sinister yet appealing, and after he discovers that he's dying, he really sells the desperation that Harry feels. Later on when he teams up with Electro his performance drops down a bit, and even more when he becomes the Goblin, but he's very good otherwise. Jamie Foxx is another one who gives a really good performance, I really felt bad for his character, the fact that a guy as cool as Foxx was able to be convincing as a "nobody" type of character just proves how talented he is. The sympathy was kind of lost when he turned into Electro, he's fine, but the reason why he became villainous didn't really make a lot of sense to me. The rest of the supporting cast also provide good performances, nothing really worth mentioning though. (And to anyone thinking about Paul Giamatti, yes he was basically a cartoon, but that was the way his character was written, so he did do a good job.)
The writing in this movie is for the most part good, the jokes work really well, and the dialogue is good, excluding some of Electro's lines. Especially the romantic scenes with Emma and Andrew, that scene where they are talking about the ground rules is so cute! And realistic too. The story was the first of the only 2 problems I had with this movie. This film tried to include so many things, it's a good thing that they cut Mary Jane from it, or else it would have been way too crowded with different plots. A good part of the movie served to set up for future sequels and spin-offs, but I don't think that the film became too preoccupied with setting up and not with its own story. The main plot was pretty cool, but they stuffed to many side plots, there was the fact that Gwen was going to Oxford, Aunt May becoming a nurse and all, the whole Rhino thing which was really depressing and the mystery with Peter's parents. Another thing that I didn't really get was who was the main villain, I'm not really sure if it's Electro or the Goblin, cause the Goblin appears as the real antagonist in the end, but Electro was a villain for the most part of the movie. The villains were very jumbled. And don't even get me started on the planes during the final fight, that was just crazy and unnecessary.
The effects of the movie are spectacular, from the webs to the lightning, that final fight was incredible, the one with the Goblin, not the one with Electro, that one was pretty decent, but the one with the Goblin was very cool, the whole sequence inside the clock tower was masterfully directed. The soundtrack of the movie is also nice, every tune combined perfectly with each scene. However there's a LOT of dubstep in this movie, and I was a bit annoyed at that.(just a matter of personal preference.)
The second of my complaints towards this film is the marketing. It was really bad, first off there's the whole thing with Rhino, the movie is marketed as having 3 villains, Electro, Rhino and the Goblin, but that was a major mislead. Rhino is, and I kid you not, in the movie for 5 minutes tops. Another thing that really bothered me was that they absolutely spoiled the movie in the multiple trailers. They spoiled the whole climax, my friends who aren't even into Spider Man were able to correctly guess what happens in the climax just by watching the trailer. That is not a good sign. Something that I absolutely hated is that they put the last shot of the movie in most of the trailers. So if you've seen a trailer for this movie, it's likely that you've seen the last scene in the movie.
In the end, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has incredible acting, it has rom-com, drama, comedy and blockbuster elements, which is very cool. However the multiple plot lines and the tangled villains make it less than what it aspired to be. The marketing also spoiled it, which sucked, but overall, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a good movie, I feel that it was money well-spent, and I was mostly entertained from beginning to end.