General popcorn viewing

Rating: 7/10 (3 October 2014)

Maybe I'm old, but I didn't enjoy Spiderman 2 as much as I wanted to. Don't get me wrong I didn't hate it, nor did I regret watching it. I just felt that there was an element of 'seen it all before' in there.
I'm not going to go into the plot of a Spiderman film. If you can't guess that our web-slinging superhero star comes up against another baddie then you really need to watch more movies! I wasn't expecting some deep and revolutionary film, filled with perfect character arcs and plot twists, but I did think it would be a little more original than it was.
It seemed to want to cater for the 'tween' generation, pushing Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey's relationship to the forefront of the film, as if it was nothing more than a 'teen drama.' Yes, there's the 'fantasy' element to the story of how being a superhero interferes with your 'normal' teenage romance, but when Peter and Gwen are doing their 'make-up/break-up' routine, it comes across as a 'Twilight' movie with more cobwebs.
The fact is that a Spiderman movie is at its best when we see Spiderman. Andrew Garfield is much better (and much more interesting) as the superhero than when he's wandering up and down the halls of his school moaning about Gwen. The film-makers really should have learnt from 'Iron Man 3' about how the public feels about superhero movies where the hero doesn't spend enough time 'in costume.' However, when the action starts it gets going. You may have seen the advertising promoting 'three' villains. Well, that is technically true, but the only one you'll really get to know properly is Jamie Fox's 'Electro.' He's the main threat to Spiderman (and the best). And when he starts kicking off then our web-slinging friend is in trouble. Everything is better when things explode. Jamie Fox plays the tragic villain with sympathy at first, before slipping into full-blown menace. The 'Green Goblin' is also in it, but he's secondary at this stage to Electro. And don't even bother mentioning 'Rhino' – he's barely got more than a cameo in the film.
It's a long film, stretching over two hours and, although the action is exciting and when it's good it's good, there was still what felt like a lot of 'filler' in there that could have been trimmed out to make it a little less irrelevant.
Probably loved by kids and enjoyed by me on only some of the levels it was meant for.