Less Than Amazing

Rating: 5/10 (21 May 2014)

I really liked the first movie. I am a big Andrew Garfield fan and I thought he did a Mich better job in the role than Tobey Maguire ever even attempted. Basically, I just liked the reboot, even though it seemed completely unnecessary. However, this movie has slipped back from the wonderful chemistry and comedy that we saw in the last film into the cheesy one liners and villains with positively laughable back stories of the old series. Besides the script, which is terrible to say the least and was obviously written by someone who very much wishes they were as clever as Joss Whedon, and the general sportiness of the plot in general, it is a decent movie. But compared to the greatness achieved in the first film, its sub par. Here is my main issue with this movie: the vagueness of it all. Everything in this movie is toned down, from the comedy to the random Phillip Phillips induced question web. Nothing the characters do or say really makes sense with what they did and said in the first film. God help them, because Andrew and Emma really are trying. They're both brilliant actors, they just have possibly the worst script in the world to work with. Another issue with this film are its two villains (that's right, two!). My friend and I who watched the film together dubbed them Insta-Villains. Jamie Foxx is a decent actor, and he pulls off the psychotic Spiderman obsession quite well, but his transition into Electro and Electro's development into a supervillain is very...instant. Within fifteen minutes of us knowing his character he has already been dunked in a tank of radioactive eels and turned blue. And within ten minutes of that, he is blasting apart Times Square to the tune of quite possibly the stupidest made- for-movie song I have ever laid ears upon. And then there's Harry Osbourne. I get that they wanted this movie to be a different version of the Green Goblin, but they changed everything they could get their hands on. I was never a fan of James Franco's Harry, but at least his character development into the Goblin made sense. Dane Dehaan is yet another example of talent laid to waste in this film. You can tell he is really trying, but the scenes between Harry and Peter are dry and unbelievable to say the least. And his transition from calm and calculated heir to Oscorp to infidel is cheesier than pure cheese. I despised that they haphazardly threw in the Goblin in the last ten minutes of the film. It was a literal exasperated "oh there's another one" moment. On a good note (and a sad one) Gwen's death was the only thing that actually triggered emotions while I was watching this movie. Andrew's performance is absolutely heartbreaking. So here's what I have to say. This was a decent film, but they really need to write more like the first movie and stop trying to be Joss Whedon. The soundtrack was AWFUL, that song that accompanied Electro's villain transition was positively dreadful. Please don't do that again. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have good chemistry as always, but it's laid to waste by the terrible script. All in all, it's not really worth going to see in theaters. Maybe rent it once the DVDs are released. I really hope they do better in the next film.