(Insert any antonym for Amazing) Spider-Man 2

Rating: 3/10 (29 July 2014)

This starts off with an embarrassing cartoon baddie played by a grunting Paul Giamatti, then has Spidey swing like an arrogant little bastard to his high school (he's a teen?) graduation, where he makes out with Gwen like a rock star. It's either bad writing, or bi-polar, but he depressingly tells her he can't be with her a scene later. Andrew Garfield plays things a bit too hyper and smug, when he's going for charming, but the boy does a fantastic American accent. We are then introduced to a mumbling and campy Jamie Foxx, who feels like he wondered off a Joel Schumacher superhero film set - and there's even an evil German scientist hamming it up with Foxx. This cluttered mess then throws Harry Osborn into the mix and some poor writing tells us he and Peter were friends as kids and not a frame of these two feels authentic. Harry needing Spidey's blood to survive and the strain it puts on Peter, doesn't earn any emotion and feels artificial, like everything else in this film. We are also spoon fed revelations about Peter's father, which are just one giant contrivance. The whole film has a connect the dots feel, with plot points that never feel developed, just forced into a screenplay that feels like studio executive notes not an actual piece of writing. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is an empty piece of committee filmmaking with no vision behind the camera. In this day and age of these types of films being pre- visualized with animation in their entirety before a frame is shot, Amazing Spider-Man 2 resembles coloring book filmmaking, all designed and pre-packaged with no artistic flair or soul. Even the music score is dreadful.