A Bold Sequel: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2014)

A Bold Sequel: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 By Erik G. Berger
About five weeks ago I moved to Japan for a one-to-three year contract as a chaplain's assistant and conversational English teacher.
Less than a week ago, I found out the new Spider-Man movie was being released early here. Turns out tonight I got to go see it with a friend, and these are my―spoiler-free―initial thoughts on the movie.
First of all, the character development in this film is quite a relief from the last multi-villain installment of the Spider-Man saga, Sam Raimi's infamous Spider-Man 3. This is, once again, a spoiler-free review so I won't go into detail over the who, what, and when, but suffice it to say that the important characters have adequate backstory screen time and enough "three- dimensionalness" to keep the action sequences from seeming forced and unimportant.
Spidey gives a real showstopping performance with his trademark antics, acrobatics and the usual hero-angst, but he does so without ever becoming overbearing. The animation and choreography of the rescues and fight scenes are spectacular, and the new, more classic suit looks really good. The action is reminiscent of the agility and grace of Spider-Man 2's battles with Doctor Octopus and maintains a consistent thread of meaning and (relative) believability throughout.
Peter Parker, in his eternal search for the balance between being a hero, and being a human, bleeds emotion and quirky humor like the fun yet deeply relatable character that he's become so well known to be. The dialogue scenes with him and Gwen are some of my favorite moments. Beautiful chemistry between the two of them.
As one can tell from the catchphrase on the movie posters for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, our web-slinging hero does face quite the battle: on emotional, physical, and superhuman levels. Jaimie Foxx plays a great new take on Electro, and proves to be a more satisfying villain―in my opinion―than the Lizard from the previous Amazing Spider-Man movie. Also Harry Osborn as a foil, and Gwen as his damsel-in-and-of-distress each prove to be engaging points of personal conflict in their own way.
Overall, I enjoyed the film quite a bit. As a mild critique: I would say the score, though very succinct and cool, felt overdone in more than one scene. The overuse of music gave the whole film a slightly theatrical feel, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it. The rest of my critical comments will have to wait for a "with spoilers" review.
Again though, I laughed, gasped, and had my hands grabbing the armrests of my chair multiple times throughout the well-filled 142 minutes of the film.
Towards the end there is some indication of what might be featured in the next film, and I'm very much on the edge of my seat to find out exactly what that will look like!
That's it for my "night of," first impressions on the new Spidey movie, true believers. It was amazing.
'Nuff said.
―Erik