Too many hands in the pot.

Rating: 7/10 (31 August 2019)

Following the release of the first Amazing Spiderman film in the summer of 2012, it was no surprise that Sony Pictures, producer Avi Arad and director Marc Webb began working on a sequel and given the strong box-office numbers the film pulled in, it showed that the webhead could stand on his own as a film property, independent from the greater Marvel universe. With this temporary success in mind, Sony made it evident that they had no plans to let Spiderman join the MCU thus while The Amazing Spiderman 2 was being made, Sony revealed release dates for two sequels with the intention supposedly being to move forward with a direct storyline akin to what Sam Raimi did with his Spiderman films. However, the plan changed yet again when Sony decided that the shared universe format that had worked so well for The Avengers would be applied to Spiderman and that The Amazing Spiderman 2 and its two sequels would be used as a starting point for various spin-offs. Thanks to the sudden shift from a contained story to a shared universe, director Marc Webb had his job cut out from him as The Amazing Spiderman 2 had a lot more to live to by the studio executives at Sony. Webb however, wanted to focus more on the plot point of Peter's parents but Sony wasn't playing ball here as they continuously twisted the script to tease more sequels and spin-offs which came at the cost of developing the story and its characters. Even Sony's CEO, Kaz Hirai supposedly had a hand in editing the film despite not having any experience in the field. The film was subject to a fair amount of behind-the scenes-middling from Sony and when the film opened on May 2nd, 2014, it was met with severely mixed reviews from both critics and audiences and was the lowest-grossing film out of the entire Spiderman filmography up to that point.
Now, much like the first Amazing Spiderman film, my experience with The Amazing Spiderman 2 when it first came out is limited as comic book movies weren't my thing at the time so I never saw it in theaters. However, in early 2017 in preparation for seeing Spiderman: Homecoming, I decided to finally give the film a watch and much like the first film, there were elements that I enjoyed such as the acting and the musical score but many other aspects of the movie such as the story and characters left a lot to be desired in my eyes.
The movie begins with Oscorp scientist, Richard Parker recording a message explaining his reasons for going into hiding. Later on, Richard and his wife, Mary are flying on a private jet when the two of them are attacked by an assassin and die in the ensuing plane crash. Years later, Richard's son, Peter Parker now fights crime in New York City as the hero Spiderman. After chasing a truck full of plutonium and apprehending the driver, Peter is able to make it just in time for his high-school graduation. While there, Peter breaks up with girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. Peter's childhood friend, Harry Osborne returns to New York to visit his dying father, Norman and upon his passing, Harry is named the new CEO of Oscorp. While working late one night, Oscorp employee, Max Dillon accidentally shocks himself and falls into a tank of electric eels and he becomes a supervillain. Now, with this new threat to face, Peter Parker now must don the mask to protect those he loves as more secrets about his own past resurface while more enemies begin to tear at Peter's world as it starts to crumble.

What is so unremarkable about The Amazing Spiderman 2 is how much it tries to feel like a comic book even if it isn't even close to having that kind of feel. Not that it's based on any of the Spiderman comic books themselves, even though there are numerous call-backs to memorable moments in the Spiderman mythos, even right down to the suit being pulled straight out of the comic pages rather than looking like a basketball like it did in the first Amazing Spiderman film. It isn't that Marc Webb is attempting to recreate the look and feel of a comic book as this isn't Ang Lee's Hulk or Into The Spiderverse, but instead, it again feels like Avi Arad and Sony bulling Webb at every turn to the point that Webb simply doesn't feel comfortable here as The Amazing Spiderman 2 feels more like a movie made by a committee rather than a movie with a story and characters the audience can be invested in and root for.
Take all the blatant problems that the first Amazing Spiderman film had such as the plethora of set-up and subplots that go absolutely nowhere, the cringe-inducing plot advancements, the moronic subplot of Peter learning about his parents' past that does nothing for the story at hand and absolutely head-scratching details like how a high-school student is given access to classified corporate files or knowing how to restart a power plant and turns it all up to 11. Add to that, numerous plot points that are never brought up again, an overstuffed story with too many plot threads, an incompetent script, Sony breathing down Marc Webb's neck at every waking moment and a movie spending more time on starting a shared universe rather than focusing on the story that it should be telling and you're left with one fundamentally flawed film. Sure the film tries to tell its own story, but thanks to Sony micro-managing it to hell and back and a lackluster script curiosity of Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Kevin Pinkner, the story here just feel weighed down by too much focus on making the film something that it shouldn't be.
At one point in the play, The History Boys, one of the characters says that history is just one thing after another. One can only envisage that Kurtzman, Orci, Pinkner and the editors of The Amazing Spiderman 2 might have that saying framed and on their desks, because it would seem that is their method of building a story is just to throw in one thing after another with no rhythm or reason to it. One could make the point that the scenes themselves are decently put together, but the various sub-plots and the various tones never really come together in a harmonious way but rather feel like they're fighting each other for attention and just clash continuously with nothing ever adding up with what the story wants to tell. Ultimately, it's fruitless in the end because when you get down to the core, The Amazing Spiderman 2 isn't really about anything. When it comes to the world of superhero movies, I adore ones that have great characters and that are able to tell a compelling story as well as provide an escape from real life, something that almost all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films have been able to do and this is true with many other superhero films. However, with The Amazing Spiderman 2, that is clearly not the case as the movie is more focused on setting up future films in Sony's shared Spiderman universe, only on occasion delivering on some kind of theme, but never consistently enough that it can fill the bare space at the film's heart. Once again, the beat of the film is so chopped up and broken that maybe there was a more consistent version of the film that was left on the cutting room floor, but I'm quite sure that much like Josh Trank's supposed original of Fant4sic, we'll probably never see that cut of The Amazing Spiderman 2 thanks to incompetent editing and Sony's typical meddling.
There's something that can be said for using at least one movie in a franchise to set up your potential shared universe as both the Mummy reboot and Batman V. Superman attempted and failed to do just that and this is an issue that many films like them have suffered from as they try in desperation to ride the coattails of what The Avengers had already done so perfectly, but the clumsy way that Sony tried to achieve the world building in The Amazing Spiderman 2 makes the shared universe building in Iron Man 2 look certainly delicate by comparison. Now, if a movie can create a world from the ground up and make it feel organic and lived-in, then that's perfectly fine. Hell, this is something many big movies have tried to do since the release of Star Wars and for the most part, almost all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films have even been able to pull off the perfect balance between including easter eggs for fans of the comics and also letting the films be their own thing. But in The Amazing Spiderman 2, Sony executives and Avi Arad feel the need to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the movie. Given how the character of Electro feels more like a side note rather than having an actual purpose in the film and Harry Osborne only becomes the Green Goblin towards the end of the film much like Venom did in Spiderman 3, the story in the film like it's trying to fire on all cylinders, rushing towards a third Amazing Spiderman film where Sony, the writers, Avi and even Marc Webb would have said that is where all the cool stuff will happen rather than focusing on what is happening in the movie itself and there's an even bigger problem even if Webb had made a third Amazing Spiderman film. By associating the creation of the villains along with Spiderman to Oscorp and Harry, the possibilities that the shared universe has are made small and trivial. Sony attempting to develop numerous films from the Spiderman cannon already felt like complete insanity and given how underwhelming The Amazing Spiderman 2 was, the further projects that Sony has lined up after Venom doesn't make me feel any more optimistic about what they may unleash upon us particularly now that Spiderman has been yanked out of the MCU.
One of the best things that divides the character of Spiderman from many of the other Marvel and DC superheroes is his blue-collar everyman quality. He's not a super-soldier, a billionaire in a high-tech suit of armor or a razor-clawed mutant with a healing factor, he's just an everyday nerdy kid who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time but ueses his powers for good simply because that's the kind of person he is. Spiderman i