Not much of an improvement

Rating: 7/10 (10 May 2014)

The film starts with a chaotic brawl on a private jet travelling to parts unknown. Richard (Campbell Scott) and Mary Parker (Embeth Davidtz) are aboard the doomed flight along with an assassin yet in a moment of concentration Richard musters the ability to upload a file on his laptop before the plane vanishes. More than a decade later, Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) is chasing bad guys in a latex suit while balancing his relationship with on-again-off-again girlfriend Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone).
You remember Stacey from the first film right? She still works for Oscorp, an organization who once employed the Parkers as well as Dr. Connors who turned out to be a Lizard creature in the first film. You know the guy who killed Gwen's father (Denis Leary) and may have been Peter's only link to his parents until the arrival of Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) who was given control of the company after father Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper) died. Also at the beginning of the film, he's chasing a menace by the name of Aleksei Sytsevich (Paul Giamatti) who has stolen; you guessed it, Oscorp property. Goodness, can't Peter find anyone outside the Oscorp circle of influence? Even the star villain of this new film is an Oscorp employee; Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) aka Electro.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) offers some of the same benefits the first installment did. There are elaborate set pieces and CGI that fulfills the fevered wet dreams of the sixteen-year-olds in all of us. The story, while a little cluttered, never ceases to provide interesting fodder when things aren't blowing up at you and then there are some dead-on performances by Emma Stone and franchise newcomer Dane DeHaan. The plot line of Peter finding out what happened to his parents takes center stage in this sequel which differentiates the Marc Webb movies from the old Sam Raimi trilogy. It all feels fresh if a little too heavy handed and busy.
The thing is the various stories swirling around this bloated sequel could have been made into three worthwhile films. Yet with three villains and their origins to contend with, Peter and Gwen's "complicated" relationship, the enduring mystery of the Parkers' disappearance, the reappearance of The Gentleman in the Shadows (Michael Massee) from the first film and a Alistair Smythe (B.J. Novak) tease it's hard for anything in the film to resonate on an emotional level. If only Webb and Sony Productions learned passed lessons and didn't frontload the film with so many villains things may have turned out differently. I dare say Spider-Man 3 (2007) was a more sound film from a storytelling point of view than this Andrew Garfield helmed mess.
And what of our 30-year-old high schooler leading man? Well his performance is convincing as a recent high school graduate and vulnerable orphan yet as a budding genius he falls short. There are many moments of slapstick provided by our leading man's tinkering yet if he actually cracked a textbook in his life or failed that, done a Google search he'd know how to keep Electro on his toes. Then of course there's Jamie Foxx who before his transformation tries to recreate his so-so performance in The Soloist (2009) only with a bad comb over. Once he becomes Electro, his character development into unstoppable psychopath seems a bit thin. Oh and of course there's Paul Giamatti's Rhino who insists he's a killer yet looks absolutely adorable both with and without his mechanized suit.
There are flickers of decent ideas in this new installment of the Spider-Man saga so here's to hoping the inevitable sequel makes a mad dash for a more succinct story and convincing villains. If not here's to hoping the Marc Webb Sony movies accomplish a new nadir in superhero movies and sells the rights back to Marvel. Then we'll be able to see a real Avengers movie featuring your neighborhood friendly Spider-Man.
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